This Flow Experiment Surprised Me

Like many high performers I used to work in a constant push mode. No time was sacred and work could always squeeze itself into my schedule. And when I wasn’t ‘working’ I was thinking about work. This strategy led to me becoming quite successful… until it didn’t.

Burnout eventually caught up with me. Hard. 

I remember one stretch where I spent two days flat on my back staring at the ceiling. I couldn’t even play a simple phone game because my head just couldn’t handle it. 

It was four days before I was fully functional again. And the moment I was? I went straight back to work.

I knew something was wrong. I just couldn’t connect the dots yet.

When I discovered flow states, things started clicking. I understood cognitively that I needed more rest but everything in me resisted it. Pushing ahead felt like a matter of survival.

I began a deep dive into studying peak productivity and I became committed to developing the skill for turning flow states on and off on command. 

My first attempt: 90 minutes of deep work, 5-minute break. I’d read 60 minutes was the recommended boundary, but I told myself I had more endurance than most (I didn’t.)

Worse, I wasn’t really taking breaks but just shifting tasks  “I can just send text messages and catch up on emails before I go back into deep work” was one of my main excuses (the truth was just that at that point I didn’t know how to properly take a break).

It helped a little. The rhythm gave me a stopping point and reduced the worst burnout spikes. But after three or four sessions I’d still hit a wall.  Not full burnout, but a heavy mental exhaustion that dragged into the next session (and sometimes even into the next day).

I made my next adjustment: I actually turned off during breaks. Chair back, eyes closed, timer running. Nothing else. It was better, but I was still surfing too close to the edge of my limit.

Then I tried what felt like a step backward: 60 minutes of work, 15-minute break.  I assumed my output would drop but I couldn’t have been more wrong.

The number of deep work sessions I could complete in a day nearly doubled. Each session started fresher and the quality of my work went up. 

While I was losing an hour of “work time” across four sessions, I was producing more than ever. More importantly, I was ending each day feeling good.

My insight was simple: if you’re starting each session carrying fatigue, you’re already behind. Real rest between sessions isn’t lost time. It’s what makes the next session possible.

More rest led to more productivity.

So let’s bring this back to you…

What is your current rhythm of purposeful pauses? 

Would you like to try an experiment for yourself?

Start with 60 minutes of flow + 15 minutes of genuine rest. If that feels like too big a jump, try 90 minutes + 5 minutes rest. But actually rest. Eyes closed, phone down, fully off.

Don’t overthink it, just run the experiment and observe. One day. A few sessions. See what changes. You might be surprised with the results.

I can share my experiments with you, but only you can find out for yourself.

To your sustainable success,

Jason Schneider