This post is about the concept of 'flow states', and asks whether this is something I can ever obtain in my current role, and if so, what I would get out of being in a flow state. My focus here is to open this topic up, rather than looking for answers - maybe those will come in future musings.

Thinking about flow: developer flow

When leading a development team¹, I have two overriding concerns:

• Maximizing the value produced by the team's effort
• Minimizing the team's effort that goes towards waste

Most of the time, I feel well-equipped to steer the first concern. There are a myriad of practices and frameworks I can apply, and I love collaborating with my team members, customers, users, and so forth to this end.

Minimizing waste, however, is a challenging beast, especially with all the things that threaten a developer's ability to focus on the goal(s) at-hand.

Over the past years, much ink has been spilled on the topic of the 'developer flow state', and the damage distractions cause on a developer's ability to work effectively. As an engineering manager, it is hard not to be conscious of this; I spend much time and thought on ensuring my team members are able to find and stay in flow, and feel great shame when I find us falling short. I am very often interrogating the extent to which I am helping or hurting in this regard by my actions (or inactions).

Does a manager (get to) have flow?

This line of thought led me to question: when am I in flow? What does it mean for me, as a manager and leader, to be able to achieve a flow state, and what am I doing when I am in that state? Should I desire & fight to have this for myself, the way I do for my team members?

It's easy to brainstorm the times I'm decidedly not in flow:

• Back-to-back-to-back meetings: here I often find myself in fight mode (as opposed to flight), which might feel like flow when I'm really rolling, but is likely something else...
• Open office distractions: I like to put myself in a place to be available², however this means when I am not in meetings, I am often distracted by random requests for help - I'll gleefully drop anything for an opportunity to discuss at a whiteboard! This can be a good thing when it can steer team effort back in the right place, but even in the best cases this comes at the cost of my time and opportunity to focus.
• Digital distractions: the constant flow of new emails, Teams / Slack pings, etc.
• ...

Taking from the well-quoted '20 minutes' it takes for a developer to re-find flow after a distraction, I strain to think of a typical day where I have a full uninterrupted 20 minutes to do anything. Does this mean I can never find flow in my current role?

Should I be doing more to ensure that I can find flow, and if so, at what interval?

This year, I have curated new tools for handling the constant flow of digital distractions & keeping my task-pile ordered, even as I chain meetings and jump at requests for input. I also have an mental toolkit I pull from often to keep myself effective at work, and I've learned to detach and go on offline walks & coffee breaks when I do need to recharge.

These tools & practices are useful for prioritizing my efforts and keeping me from burnout, but can't help me reach or maintain flow, or give me useful things to do in a flow state.

I reckon that flow state is most valuable for creative activities - e.g. developing software - hence the value in focusing on this as a lever for productivity.

This begs the question: when am I as a manager creative?

I feel creative when I'm working something out with my team, or deep in a collaborative workshop. I relish the feeling of collective flow I get from these activities. Does this mean I'm only in flow when I'm collaborating?

This all of course excludes the occasions where I'm tasked with an obviously creative activity, like architecting, developing, designing, specifying, etc.

Could the answer be as soul-crushing as "when I'm plugging away in Excel, writing emails, drafting contracts, etc."? Or are there more valuable things I could achieve in a flow state?

Does the nature of being in a managerial/leadership role mean that I'm delegating and curating other people's creativity, foregoing the concern about being creative myself?

I don't have any answers yet, but the thread of thought I have now builds on a review of the tasks & responsiblities I have as a software delivery manager / leader - somewhere in that list, I bet I can find tasks that are creative and deserving of the kind of focus one only gets in a flow state 🕵🏻‍♂️