Triggering the Zone

Natasha Fondren — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:08:00 +0000

Slipping into the zone is not easy. It takes practice. When I was practicing piano, playing now and then, performing now and then, speaking in front of an audience now and then, and practicing Tae Kwon Do, slipping into the zone was second nature.

Flip a switch and there.

Or, as Michael Jordan said, “I know the Zone. I can put it on like an overcoat.”

But the further I get away from piano and Tae Kwon Do, the more difficult this becomes. The snap-boom-on doesn’t happen at command anymore.

I never thought I’d lose that.

Getting into the zone takes triggers. Sit at the piano, there. Bow, there. That’s the problem with computers: they are multi-purpose machines. Sitting at the computer can’t be an instant there, because sometimes you’re watching Hulu, sometimes you’re playing Facebook, sometimes you’re chatting with friends, sometimes you’re writing emails, and sometimes you’re writing.

Add into the fact that when you’re writing for hours a day, you need a little mental break every hour. So even if you were to snap into the zone at your desk, you need to snap in and out of it every hour.

So how to trigger it? That’s the question. Opening the document seems obvious, but doesn’t quite work. Sometimes going into a full-screen editor helps, like Q10, where all you can see is the words you write. (Sorry about the colors in the preview picture; the colors are customizable.) Other than that?

I’m looking for ideas: What snaps you into the zone? Or, should we brainstorm? What triggers could we use to snap ourselves into the zone?

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Triggering the Zone