Hello, I'm Lucien. I’ve spent 7 years building my agency GenNow Comms in Shanghai, the world's most workaholic city, while maintaining an actual human life.
in the Exec Edge I share how I do it
Dear Reader,
Thank you for reading the second edition of The Executive Edge, where we deep dive into Flow State - a peak performance state of consciousness.
Have you ever been so deep in a task that time vanished and success felt effortless? In sports it's called being in the zone, at work or study it's called Flow State.
Executive Summary
What exactly is flow state? Peak performance
Is it possible to create it on demand? Yes but...
How do we create it on demand?
Two guys perhaps in Flow State
What Actually is Flow State?
Flow is a peak-performance mental state where you’re fully immersed in what you’re doing.
It's different to Deep Focus, which is about disciplining yourself to focus (more on this in a future newsletter), whereas Flow State actually an enters you into an altered brain state. It was first studied in the 1970's by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who found that Flow State involves a temporary deactivation of the prefrontal cortex (responsible for self-monitoring and time awareness).
It can occur during deep work — like strategic thinking, writing, coding, or designing — and also in performance-based activities like sports, music, and public speaking.
It's characterised by:
Clear goals and immediate feedback
Deep focus and full concentration
A balance between challenge and skill
Loss of self-awareness
A distorted sense of time
High intrinsic motivation
Pure bliss
What conditions are needed for Flow State?
To trigger flow, certain conditions must be in place:
1. Deep Work One single task or related set of tasks (e.g., writing and researching a presentation). Not jumping between writing slides and processing invoices.
2. Challenge–Skill Balance The task should stretch your abilities just enough to keep you engaged — not too easy, not overwhelming.
3. Clear Goals + Feedback You should know what you’re trying to achieve and have a way to gauge progress as you go.
4. Autonomy You need control over how and when you work. (In practice, this often means working from a pre-set plan so you know the 1–2–3 of the task.)
5. Novelty + Complexity Your brain gets more engaged in rich, stimulating environments or slightly unfamiliar tasks.
6. Immediate Consequences A sense of urgency helps — like when your client says, “Can I get that in an hour?” Yeah, that.
So, how do we recreate it on demand?
Now onto the good stuff, let's actually recreate Flow State!
✅ Choose one meaningful and related task
✅ Block out at least 90 minutes
✅ Set a clear outcome of this piece of work – eg slides 1 – 10 of client proposal and then send to colleague to review.
✅ Cut out distractions — Mute notifications, close browser tabs
✅ Use a pre-flow ritual — For me tidying up my desk to be immaculate triggers a sense that I'm getting into something deep
✅ Focus music or silence – I’ll share my favourite music below but the common denominator is that they’re all non-vocal and non-emotional - music is an accompaniment not a distraction.
But do stay realistic
As amazing as Flow State, there are some limiting factors:
1. Not endlessly repeatable My research shows that theoretically it can be repeated once a day, though I've only experienced it say once a week
2. 90-120 minutes only Flow state can't be maintained for your entire work day, as you cognitive performance declines and fatigue sets in.
3. Emotional cost People report feeling exhausted after Flow State, which makes sense given how much you're putting in.
4. Only works for single context projects There's absolutely no context switching in Flow State, and actually any context switching would break the spell as it were.
App and Music Recommendations
App Block - I use the free browser extension of this to block the websites I go to the most
Goblin Tools - this AI tool helps break down the individual parts of a project so you can just follow step by step
So that's my 5 minutes for this week's Executive Edge. If you enjoyed it please share with your friendsand do get in touch with questions or suggestions at lucien@gennow.cn
Next week I'll be discussing a life-changing (no exaggeration) 16 minute full body workout programthat's kept my mind and body healthy even through tough deadlines.
