31: Ep. 31 | Finding Your Flow - Developer Productivity and The Zone

Erika (00:00) Welcome to the Overcommitted Podcast, your weekly dose of real engineering conversations. I’m your host today, Erika and I’m joined by…

Brittany Ellich (00:09) I’m Brittany Ellich

Erika (00:12) We met while working on a team at GitHub and quickly realized that we are obsessed with getting better at what we do. So we decided to start this podcast to share what we’ve learned. We’ll be taking up everything from leveling up your technical skills to navigating professional development, all with the goal of creating a community where engineers can learn and connect.

Today’s topic is the holy grail of developer productivity. That is flow state. We know the feeling, we start to work and find some kind of heightened zone of productivity and focus. And for developers, finding this ideal state has been directly linked to work quality, pace of completion, and overall job satisfaction. But what does the research say about this phenomenon? And what can our

tell us about how we can harness its power to our advantage. So let’s start, Brittany, by talking about flow state. Let’s describe what it means for us and what the first things that come to mind of what gets us into or takes us out of this zone.

Brittany Ellich (01:24) Yeah, for me, think I am not a psychologist or neurologist or anything. So I really only know, you know, the effect on myself and not the specifics about, know, what it actually means for the average brain. But for me, what it means when I am in flow state is when, you know, time sort of slips away and I’m so focused on a problem that like, you know, you’re so engaged and in the zone that everything just kind of comes together. It feels like and.

feel smooth and like, you you look up and you’re like, an hour and a half has passed and I didn’t realize it. That’s usually when I feel like I’m in some sort of a flow state. What about you?

Erika (02:04) Yeah, for sure. I sometimes have days where I go through the full day and I feel like I’ve done nothing. And then I have those magical days where I have done everything that I wanted to do and all the CI is passing, my PRs are approved. Yeah, and that feeling of joy and productivity.

where things don’t feel like a slog, but you’re really like cranking and getting things done. Yeah, that’s what it is for me. I look at the list at the end of the day and it’s all done. Yeah, so I, and you know, full disclaimer, I am also not a psychologist, but did do some research on what the science…

has to say about this leading up to this podcast. So did find out that one key to getting into this state is a balance between challenge and skill level, meaning that if you encounter a task or have something to do that’s beyond your current skill, you experience cognitive overload. And then if…

On the flip side, what you have to do is below your current skill level, you feel boredom. So does this ring true for you in how you’ve experienced this phenomenon?

Brittany Ellich (03:33) Yes, I think, yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense to me in how I’ve experienced it. I feel like there’s this optimal time where I’ve been in a specific job or on a team for long enough that I know where things are at, but not so long that I know where everything is and I know immediately how to solve problems that, you know, in that sweet spot of I’m still learning, but it’s not so hard that I’m getting frustrated all the time is where like I really get into the flow state.

Erika (04:02) Yeah, for sure. And I think, like, I definitely recognize the times when I feel bored. And like, those are when I look up and it’s been like, you know, five minutes, but it’s felt like an hour. It’s like really the opposite. I feel like when I do get into those states where like it’s a really tough problem and I don’t necessarily know how to solve it.

like the key thing for me is like having a next step to do. Like if I have no place to turn or I have no like idea of, you know, what tools to use or where to look next, like that’s a really frustrating place to be in. And, like that’s when I, you know, really start to feel that like headache feeling or like, like deep frustration.

But I mean, solving problems is kind of what we do. like, you know, having some level of like, oh, I don’t quite know how to do this. Like, that’s okay. Like, I don’t have to have all the tools at my disposal starting out. But yeah, I think like, for me, what’s been helpful in that is like,

giving myself kind of touch points of like, okay, I’ve been at this for an hour. how have I made progress? Have I gone down like a million different rabbit holes and I’m like spinning my wheels or have I like written code that’s cohesive and like is actually solving a thing?

Brittany Ellich (05:42) Yeah, that makes sense. One of the reasons that I thought about this recently too is I feel like, I don’t know if this is actually accurate, but I feel like there are two sort of different types of flow states. There’s the ones where I’m very deeply in a specific problem and I’m like wholly focused on solving this one thing. And then there’s another type where I’m just multitasking so much that it also feels like a flow state.

And I noticed this recently because I’ve been working really hard on using the coding agent to solve small problems within our code base, just to test it out and also, you know, to knock out tech debt, all sorts of different things, test this new way of working. And usually that is a bunch of really small problems at once. And while I still feel like I’m very focused on those things, but I’m like changing context so quickly that it

almost feels like a flow state as well, but it feels very different from like fully focused on solving this one problem end to end. I equate it. I remember when I used to work at Starbucks and I noticed that it feels very similar to when I would like work on the bar and make drinks like so quickly that I was like looking at the next like five or six drinks in a row and like optimizing and synchronizing my time so that like I would move so fast to get all these things done. It feels like that.

Erika (06:55) I won.

Brittany Ellich (07:02) which is also like very cognitively taxing, like being in, you know, a flow state could be otherwise, but I think it’s, it’s, it’s interesting that, you know, we’re moving towards this new way of working where we have agents for coordinating. and it’s, I wonder if there’s like a different thing that’s happening. what if there’s a different flow state there? I don’t know what your thoughts are.

Erika (07:02) Yeah.

I can definitely identify with that and I almost think that the cognitive challenge there is time management or like task management. Like you’re not necessarily focused on the tasks themselves, but you’re like focused on how you can get like the most amount done in like a given set of time. Yeah, so I think like I…

I have had that experience too, where I’m like, oh, let me try to offload this, yeah, like tasks which might take me out of my problem solving context. Like, let’s see if we can automate this and yeah, like I’ve also felt that kind of like thrill of, hey, cool, it worked. Like I told it to create, I don’t know, 15 issues and like.

It did the thing. Yeah, there’s also the flip side where you’re like, I told it to do this thing and it totally backfired. Like, oh no, I have to like go clean up the mess. yeah, as long as it’s reversible and like, you know, it’s a pretty low risk thing. Like, it’s not necessarily a bad thing. Like you tried something, it didn’t work.

Brittany Ellich (08:43) Yeah, that’s why version control exists. know, it. That’s in place. You can always just get rid of it all and start over, but yeah.

Erika (08:46) Yeah.

Yeah, well, and it leads to some other factors that research has identified are important to flow state, one of which is immediate feedback, clear goals, sense of control over the task. So in development, this means

knowing exactly what you’re trying to do. So like whether that’s in code or like automating, like how do you know the thing is done? Like is that clear? Is that not clear? And yeah, I think like the idea is that in a flow state, like if whether you’re automating or coding, like you can know pretty quickly like

keep or leave versus like, I don’t know if that was the right thing or like, I have to go back and like re-contextualize. Yeah, having control over the task, like, I guess knowing that like when you do something, it will…

like apply correctly, I guess. Like if I make a PR, like maybe it might not get accepted. And like that can be frustrating. Or yeah, like coding requires a lot of collaboration. And so to a certain extent, that like is a lack of control.

But like when you open up a change, like you’re the driver of that change. But yeah, in several studies, the whole review process is cited as something that can really like take you out of flow state where you land in the like purgatory of reviews of nitpicks and no one approves it or no one, know. And it’s like that can like that in itself can kind of be like.

demoralizing and take you out of your flow.

Brittany Ellich (10:58) Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. There was an article recently by Simon Willison, trying to recapture the vibe coding term and calling it vibe engineering. And one of the things called out there is how important it is now with, you know, when you’re using agent tools, whatever they may be to make changes, to have like a really good preview environment or staging environment. So you can quickly verify that those things actually work. And I thought that that was really interesting.

to think about, because I’ve noticed that too. That’s a thing that I want to invest in more in the codebases that I work in, because I want to be able to ship this quickly and actually see what it looks like so that I don’t have to open up a codebase and actually check it all out and make sure it all works. So yeah, good feedback definitely makes sense. I also kind of wonder as we spend more time working with AI tools to, you know,

build things, build everything, how the code review process might end up changing too. Like, are we going to need a review from somebody else on our team? Like, does code quality matter as much when, you know, you have a bunch of robots writing the vast majority of the code that you’re writing? Like, does code quality actually matter that much? Like, do those nitpicks, are they still as valid? And is readability still as valid when you can like use tools to help you interpret what?

complex code is doing. ⁓ Yeah, so I wonder if we might optimize more towards like removing more of those checks so that people can move things more quickly and get more of that feedback. I don’t know if I’m advocating for it either way, because that also sounds really scary. But I don’t know, just a thought experiment recently on like how the world of software engineering is changing.

Erika (12:17) and

sorry.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, I know what you’re saying. Yeah, I think that there’s also an idea of healthy friction and I think an example of being empowered to make a change is like a system change. you have to request access to something to make a change.

Okay, is that an extra step? Yes. Like, is it an important step in some cases to like prevent crazy production changes? Like, yeah. Like, and arguably like the most important thing there is like auditability. And like kind of to your similar point of like the most important thing for any code is that like it can be maintained. Whether that’s like through me reading it directly and like…

understanding what it does or me asking a coding agent or like an LLM to interpret it for me. Like the important thing is that like I know what it’s doing and probably even more importantly that it’s like doing what it needs to do. So yeah, like the how we get there. It’s like, well, it kind of depends, I guess. Like I would imagine that like

I don’t know, I’m trying to think of situations where readability is a trade-off I’d be willing to make. I feel like in a personal project where no one else has to read it. But that’s kind of existing standards for me. I feel like anytime someone else would have to read what I do, readability is key.

I guess, because also like coding bots or whatever, like pick up on the same context clues. Like if it’s like, yeah, the devil’s advocate is like, if it’s not readable to a human, it’s probably also not really readable to an AI. Yeah. But yeah, what other, what other kind of like tooling do we think of as like helping or hurting?

Brittany Ellich (14:41) Yeah, it’s true. That’s true. That’s true.

Erika (14:51) flow seat.

Brittany Ellich (14:53) Mm-hmm.

That’s a good question. think for me, feel like I, habit is really important. That’s not really a tool, but like there are tools that I use to build habit. Like there’s a specific Spotify playlist that when I listen to it, I am so much more likely to like get deeply into focus mode than if I don’t have that available to me. Same with like wearing these headphones that are like noise canceling so that it’s not like there’s a lot of noise around me, but it like.

Erika (15:13) Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Brittany Ellich (15:23) you know, get sort of all the street noise and everything. And so like, I think that’s really helpful. At least for me, it’s probably very individual. Cause I know some people focus better, like sitting in a coffee shop or sitting, you know, whatever it is that helps somebody focus.

Erika (15:38) Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, that’s interesting. Like your environment. Yeah, I’m very sensitive to noise. And I like having like a very quiet space, but having like certain playlists that I listen to. I don’t think I have one playlist specifically, but…

depending on my mood, I’ll listen to something that like either matches my mood or like if I’m really low energy and I need something that kind of like boosts me, I’ll put on some something like higher energy. Yeah. I guess another thing that comes up a lot is interruptions and like we use Slack. So

How do you find that that like affects your flow state and how do you manage that?

Brittany Ellich (16:31) Yeah, that affects it a lot because I have FOMO. And don’t want to miss anything that’s happening in Slack. I’ve made a few changes to Slack there recently. Like I have turned off all sound notifications and for the most part, most like of those, I don’t know, desktop notifications. Usually I don’t see them because they’re on my laptop, which is, you know, away from like my main, main monitor that I look at. But I try to reduce those so that I don’t get interrupted. And that’s been really helpful.

It’s hard though, because there’s so many channels at any large company and there’s so many things to pay attention to that it can be really hard to make sure that you don’t miss anything while also, you know, make sure that those things don’t interrupt you. Sometimes I’ll do like the whole like note turn notifications off and that can be helpful too. but yeah, what about you?

Erika (17:13) Mm.

Yeah, I feel like I…

I keep my notifications on with Slack for the off chance that somebody needs me urgently. And I feel like that’s always the thing that goes in my mind is, is there something going on and I’m the only one who can respond and it’s like urgent. Like I need to respond right away. And the number of times when that has been true, I don’t even know if it’s literally ever been true. Like it is such.

Brittany Ellich (17:45) Yeah

Erika (17:47) such an outlier that like, it’s a really dumb reason to like keep Slack so constant in my life. And I feel like the other problem I have with Slack is those moments of boredom where I’m like only half engaged in a task and then I’m like, I’ll check Slack to like see if there’s anything like more important or like more interesting going on.

And then I get like sucked in and like checking every channel But it’s like this balance where like you said like you do have to know what’s going on you can’t like be living under a rock But you also like really can’t get meaningful work done Unless it’s communication like if there’s something that needs to be communicated or figured out like slack is the place to do it

But like there’s so much there that I don’t actually need to engage with. ⁓

Brittany Ellich (18:46) Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I had to really get over my fear of having unread notifications with Slack. I think for a long time I was like, I need to check every single channel. And recently I actually made a change where I found the maybe five-ish most important channels. And there’s an ability to set a notification where I don’t have the sound ones, but I have a notification that goes off in Slack when

Erika (18:52) Mmm.

Brittany Ellich (19:11) a new message is sent to those channels. And it also adds the little like red bubble next to them so that like I can have all of these unread channels. They all look the same. But then like the really important ones when I get new messages there, then they have that little red bubble. And I’m like, OK, I need to go actually check those and the rest of them. I can look out whenever or just Mark always read.

Erika (19:17) Thank

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s definitely, I don’t think I have like quantified the most important Slack channels to me because I do feel like it’s also dependent. Like if an incident happens or like if I’m on a project, like that then becomes the most important channel. But like that probably maybe is a good habit to get into of like having a priority section. Like, um.

being like, okay, at this point in time, like maybe once a week or something, like this would be interesting to try. Like, at this point in time, these are the five most important channels to me, and then like everything else, I can check it when I check it. ⁓

Brittany Ellich (20:12) Yeah, that’s

part of my on-call, like going on-call thing too, is I like turn off all of the existing ones and then turn on all the on-call channels that I know I need to be in. That also lets me like turn it off at the end of on-call and like unplug from being like the first responder for issues. ⁓ That’s also helpful, I think.

Erika (20:21) Thank you. ⁓

Yeah.

Huh. That’s good. I’m going to steal that. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. So I guess also, like, we’ve talked about flow state as, a personal, like, individual experience. But is it something that can happen in collaboration? Like,

Brittany Ellich (20:35) Yeah, please do.

Erika (20:53) Have we ever had the experience of like pair programming and getting into a flow state?

Brittany Ellich (20:58) Yeah, I think so. depends on who the person that you’re programming with is probably. I think it’s probably more likely if you’re using like really collaborative tools like Live Share or something like that. If I’m just watching somebody else program, like my ability to pay attention is pretty low. So if I’m driving or there’s some sort of like Live Share involved where I can also like be in the code base at the same time, that’s helpful. I like.

Erika (21:14) Uh-huh.

Brittany Ellich (21:23) pair programming in general. think it’s probably hard to like reach that flow state while pair programming, but I think it’s, I think it’s fun and it’s nice to do it to for like knowledge sharing and for other reasons. What about you?

Erika (21:34) Yeah.

Yeah. So like, to be fair, like sometimes, sometimes the beauty of pair programming is like introducing that friction in real time. so like, think sometimes like flow state in pair programming is actually an anti-goal where like, if it’s, cause I guess like part of the idea is your code at the end of a pair programming session.

is higher quality than it would be if you worked by yourself. And it might take longer to get there, but maybe you have somebody who’s always checking and providing suggestions. And those things take you out of that state, potentially, of pen to paper, everything flows. But the code might actually end up better.

But I think I have had experiences where maybe like I know one thing and the person I’m pairing with knows the other thing. So like alone, that task would be maybe like too hard for me or something like that. And when I’m pairing, like we end up getting into a really good flow or on the opposite side too, like maybe something’s kind of like mundane for me. But the person…

I’m pairing with doesn’t know how to do it. so then the like challenge is teaching. Like it’s like a learning moment kind of a thing. And so it can feel more like a flow because, you know, I have to think about how I’m communicating and and that kind of stuff. Yeah. I don’t like the first thing I think of, but I think it’s definitely possible.

Brittany Ellich (23:16) Yeah, yeah, I can see that.

Erika (23:18) Yeah.

Well, cool. Yeah, I think the science also talks about like other social dynamics that can encourage or discourage flow state. Some of these are like that familiarity, the interpersonal nature of any collaboration that you have, your physical environment, and then also psychological safety. And

this is the idea that you can take risks and it’ll be okay. So that can contribute to like anxiety and pressure and stress when it’s not present and those can be detractors for that flow state. I think mostly because you’re focusing on that.

instead of whatever the task is at hand. Like you’re worried more about how something will come across or whether like, whether it’s wrong, whether you’re gonna, you know, get fired versus like, how do I solve this problem the right way or, or even feel comfortable like taking time to understand it. Like if you feel like you’re always under pressure, always under the gun.

Like maybe you don’t feel like you have the time or the space to ask questions or like understand what you don’t know to like get to that point where your knowledge or skill level meets the task.

Brittany Ellich (24:45) Hmm. Yeah, that’s a really good point. And yet another reason for making sure that you like are investing time in those psychological safety things for like your whole team. Cause then you can really unblock the rest of your team by making sure that people feel comfortable with, you know, saying like, I have a stupid question.

Erika (25:04) Yeah, yeah, and like, I think it’s important to also know when to cut it off, right? Like, if there’s somebody who’s like always spiking or always, you know, doing little things that, like never actually getting anything done because they’re always trying something, like, maybe we need to find like a middle ground, like.

Brittany Ellich (25:31) Yeah.

Yeah, I feel like that resonates too, because I’ve definitely been on teams before where like the entire team is just really productive as a whole. And so I wonder if that’s because like that psychological safety is built in to where, you know, people feel comfortable enough to be able to like actually perform much better than they would be able to otherwise. and then I’ve also been on teams where that’s not the case. and the opposite could be said. So yeah.

Erika (25:58) Yeah, I feel like I’m like experiencing that now with my current team where we’re like relatively, I want to say relatively new. We’ve like been in our current state for about like six to eight months. And it’s kind of surprising to me that like only now do I really feel like we can have a lot of like open honest conversations about like

Brittany Ellich (25:58) That’s really interesting.

Erika (26:25) what is and isn’t working. Like we don’t need to be overly nice to each other or like protect each other from being like, but why? Or, you know, pushing the boundaries of like decision-making and also kind of like understanding how each other think to like read the subcontext. So yeah, it takes a while.

Brittany Ellich (26:51) Mm-hmm.

Yeah, that’s a, also a good point. feel like for like, why, like changing up teams are like consistently reorg ing is probably setting some companies back too, because as those team dynamics are really important too, for feeling that psychological safety. And if that’s, you know, important for doing your best work, then constantly changing up the structure of the team or like constantly having the threat of layoffs is probably impacting the entire organization as a whole.

negatively.

Erika (27:24) Yeah, I wonder if there’s been any studies around that or changes and layoffs and the impact on productivity.

Brittany Ellich (27:28) Probably.

There has to be, I’m sure we can. I don’t wanna speak without actually knowing that that is the case, but I’m reasonably certain that there’s some ties there. Yeah, it’d be interesting to go look up.

Erika (27:39) Ha

Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Follow up.

cool. Well, all, yeah, I’ll throw out a few other ideas that, have been suggestion suggested for, like things to try to improve flow state. So one idea is this idea of 15 % time, which means dedicating like a portion of every sprint to self-directed learning or exploration projects. So that’s a way to find that.

Find that balance between like executing and getting work done and like building up the skills and the knowledge to do what you’re interested in. Having no meeting blocks of two to four hours. Having integrated development and testing environments. So kind of like you were talking about being able to quickly get that feedback loop of whether what you did worked or not.

preserving context across sessions. So like not needing to build up what you learned previously or for someone else that you’re working with. Like yeah, like that time waste of rehashing what’s already been figured out. And then some ways to consider the impacts or measure the impact.

is reduction in cycle time, increased reported focus time, satisfaction and engagement, and bug rates and rework percentage.

Yeah.

Brittany Ellich (29:04) Wow. I feel like a lot of those really fit into a lot of those like developer productivity metrics to like space and can’t remember what the other.

work and bugs, like that’s a sign not only that you are having trouble with, you focus, but also that like the entire organization might be, you know, there might be evidence that the entire organization is less healthy than it could be and not able to get into that state.

Erika (29:32) Yeah, yeah, a couple of the things that I read mentioned like Dora metrics, which I think is along the same lines.

Cool. Well, thanks for chatting about this. This was fun. Yeah. So for our fun segment, I came up with a Cosmo style quiz about flow state. ⁓ So since it’s something we all love, the quiz is titled, are you a full flow state flirt or a full blown in the zone lover?

Brittany Ellich (29:45) Yeah it was. It was good.

Yes.

Erika (30:08) Very causal. So we have some questions and all of these are A or B questions and we’ll count up our scores and then tally them at the end to see where we fall. All right, question number one. You just fixed a huge bug. How do you feel? A, totally zapped, need a break to recover or B, energized, ready for the next challenge?

Brittany Ellich (30:10) It is, yeah, that’s amazing.

Okay, am I keeping track of them myself? Is that the goal?

Erika (30:39) I can keep track of them. I’m going to say A for me. Okay.

Brittany Ellich (30:42) Yeah, same.

Erika (30:44) Next question. Your ideal work music is? A. The latest trending songs with lyrics or B. Non-lyrical, repetitive music that fades away.

Brittany Ellich (30:55) definitely be for me.

Erika (30:57) Yeah, me too. I have trouble with lyric songs. All right, question three. A coworker pops over for a quote, quick question. Option A, I stop what I’m doing and give them my full attention. Option B, I politely point to my headphones and keep coding.

Brittany Ellich (31:14) I would say probably B because that’s effectively what I’m doing by turning my Slack notifications off. And that’s like the closest that I come to having a coworker come and bug me right now.

Erika (31:26) I can’t stop myself from answering people at this point in my life, so I’m gonna say A. All right, how long does it take to start writing meaningful code? Option A, 30 plus minutes, gotta check email, Slack, and news. Option B, five minutes, I get straight to the preselected task.

Brittany Ellich (31:31) Mm-hmm.

Oof. Is this like at the beginning of the day?

Erika (31:51) I guess so.

Brittany Ellich (31:52) Yeah, definitely. My first hour of the day is just not productive at all, usually.

Erika (31:56) Ha!

It really depends on the day.

I’m gonna also say A though.

That feels more right, well, more of the time.

Brittany Ellich (32:05) Yeah.

Erika (32:06) Okay, question five. When tackling a huge feature, you hop between small different tasks when you get stuck. Option B, break the large problem down into small, clear sub goals.

Brittany Ellich (32:19) B for sure.

Erika (32:21) same.

Okay, question seven, your notifications are set to all on. I check them as they come in or option B, do not disturb for blocks of 90 minutes or more.

Brittany Ellich (32:33) Be.

Erika (32:34) Yeah, I’m gonna have to say A. But I’m gonna change this.

Brittany Ellich (32:39) Yes, now you know the, it’s worth it. It feels really nice to just be like, you know what? I’m not that important. Yep.

Erika (32:42) Yes.

in the jacket.

Okay, we’re almost done. When you hit a frustrating complex error, you immediately jump to stack overflow for a quick fix. Oof, this is outdated. Option B, I lean into the puzzle, the difficulty is the reward.

Brittany Ellich (32:58) you

Hmm. What’s stack overflow again? Just kidding. I would say probably A, if we’re replacing that with like going to, you know, whatever your tool of choice is. I go to copilot when I get stuck on something pretty quickly, but I don’t know that that’s, I would argue that that’s not necessarily taking you out of flow state. That’s just like a part of it.

Erika (33:08) Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I usually at least like stop and think about it before I ask Copilot. So I’m going to say B.

Brittany Ellich (33:32) Mm hmm. Yeah.

Yeah, I’ll go with that too. I don’t immediately ask. Yes, B. Because sometimes, you know what? Sometimes you just need to actually read the error message and it will tell you exactly what’s wrong. And it’s, yeah.

Erika (33:40) Okay.

Yes. Yeah.

All right, last question. Do you have a pre-flow ritual? For example, getting coffee or reviewing to-do lists. Option A, no, I just dive in and see what happens. Option B, yes, I have a five minute routine to mentally cue deep work.

Brittany Ellich (34:05) definitely B. I don’t know if it’s exactly five minutes, but yeah, I spend a lot of time like organizing my to-do list and getting everything perfect. Optimal amount of caffeine. It’s a whole, it’s a whole thing.

Erika (34:07) Yeah.

same.

Okay, we have our answers. So I will ask you to tally your own score, because I can’t. Okay, I’m going to count mine, you count yours. And I think we’re only counting the bees. Yeah, okay, we only count the bees.

Brittany Ellich (34:23) Okay.

Okay.

Erika (34:34) Okay, and I think this is also a little skewed because I took out a few questions. So how many did you get? Okay, so you are a full blown zone lover. You are a focused champion. You’ve mastered your environment and see challenging work as a reward. Your biggest risk is burnout.

Brittany Ellich (34:46) I got six.

Yes.

Erika (35:02) make sure you schedule intentional breaks. And I think it’s the Slack notifications that got me. I am a flow state flirt. You felt the magic, but distractions are winning the battle. Focus on reducing friction and setting a clear non-negotiable focus block every day. You’re close to unlocking peak performance.

Brittany Ellich (35:22) That was amazing. We’re

gonna have to post this survey for everybody to be able to enjoy this as well. I wanna hear what everybody else’s answer is. This was so good.

Erika (35:30) Absolutely.

Yes.

Well, awesome. Thank you, listeners, so much for tuning in to Overcommitted. If you like what you hear, please do follow, subscribe, or do whatever it is you like to do on the podcast app of your choice. Check us out on Blue Sky and share with your friends. And until next week, goodbye.