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《脑科学告诉你：如何利用一天时间实现一个月的工作量？》

efore dinner, imagine completing a month's worth of work

Does it sound absurd? Well, the science shows that there is an unconventional but proven way to do this. This method is the ultimate hack for peak performance and work-life balance, and it will permanently redefine what productivity actually means to you.

I'm Rhian D'Arce, co-founder and CEO of the Flow Research Collective. We've used neuroscience-based principles to train everyone from Audi, Accenture to the US Air Force to access states of flow at will. It turns out there's a neuroscience-based protocol to compress 30 days of output into 11 hours.

In this article, I will break that down for you. This is a protocol you can run to take yourself to an intentionally unsustainable extreme, with the benefit of knowing that it's temporary and that it's time-bound, so that you can produce an extreme result - a month's worth of work, progress, achievement in a single day. It's an Olympian-level feat, challenging to pull off, but doable. And it's called the one-month day.

The one-month day: An Olympian-level feat

I'll never forget my first one-month day. I was temporarily living in New York, working on my Masters in Applied Neuroscience. I did everything I'm about to break down in this article. I managed to write half of the thesis in one day, proofread it, convert it into the necessary academic format, and submit the thing. I left the library high as a kite, finished at 11.30pm on Friday, and couldn't believe I had done it all and was able to take the whole weekend off. It was a heavenly feeling.

Ever since, the one-month day has been an indispensable part of my peak performance toolkit. But before I break down how to execute the one-month day, how is it possible to accomplish a month's worth of work in a single day?

The neuroscience of productivity

Let's run the math. Research suggests that the average knowledge worker does real work for only 2.3 hours per day, or about 46 hours per month. In contrast, research done by McKinsey has shown that executives can increase their productivity by up to 500% when in a flow state at work.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describes flow as a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing external seems to matter. A characteristic of the flow state is a potent mix of brain chemicals, dopamine, norepinephrine, endorphins, anandamide, and serotonin that directly enhance our performance.

And this neurochemical change is highlighted in research conducted by Arne Dietrich of the American University of Beirut. Dopamine and norepinephrine sharpen focus and boost pattern recognition and motivation. Endorphins and anandamide increase endurance and enhance creative thinking. And serotonin elevates our mood and helps us stick with challenging tasks.

Considering these neurological shifts, it's easy to see how a 500% productivity boost is possible. But this 500% figure, though astounding, is actually kind of conservative. We've seen elite performers match a full-time day in just 60 to 90 minutes of dedicated time spent on the right work in a flow state. And when you do the flow state stacking we're about to cover, 500% productivity boosts start to sound inevitable.

Still, for our one-month-day calculation, let's be conservative and assume a 400%, a 4x increase in productivity. At four times productivity for 11 hours, you can achieve the equivalent of 44 hours of average work output in that single day.

Now, to show you that a one-month day is possible, let's walk through exactly how to pull it off. In order to make the one-month day a reality, it requires maximizing the four pillars of flow.

The four pillars of flow

First, you have to remove all the flow blockers, things that make flow impossible. Then, you have to increase your flow proneness, that is, your tendency and likelihood of accessing flow at any given moment. You make expert use of flow triggers all throughout the day - these are the preconditions that pop you into a flow state - and finally, you enter and exit the flow cycle multiple times in the day to ensure your brain can sustain the neurochemistry of flow for the entire day.

Don't worry, we're going to cover these along the way as we break down how to set up a schedule and run the one-month day.

Step 1. Isolate the target

The first part of the one-month day happens before the day even begins. Take a moment to consider everything that's on your plate. Consider your current goals and your current plan for the next 30 days or so. If you could snap your fingers and have something be completed in a day that would normally take you about a month, what would that piece of work be?

Bring something to mind to accomplish during your one-month day.

Step 2. Clear the load

In order to pull off the one-month day, your flow-proneness has to be high. Flow proneness refers to your inherent tendency or likelihood to experience flow frequently and easily. Rather than leave this up to chance, we can intentionally clear everything that suppresses flow proneness in advance.

The first is to clear your allostatic load. For the one-month day, your body and brain must be fully recovered. Flow requires neurochemicals that are expensive for the brain to produce. It's not possible to sustain the state for long without proper recovery.

The way to recover is to clear your allostatic load, which is a fancy way of referring to the physical wear and tear that your body and brain accumulates throughout your day to day. To clear your allostatic load, use active recovery protocols.

Active recovery involves engaging actively in activity that accelerates the recovery process, activates the parasympathetic nervous system, and down-regulates your sympathetic nervous system. Things like nature immersion, cold plunges, sauna, and massage.

And of course, get seven to nine hours of sleep. The key to getting successful sleep is to go to bed deaf, blind, cold, and hungry. Deaf means blocking out all sound and using some kind of earbuds. Blind is easiest done by using an eye shade. Cold means having the temperature cold. And hungry means not eating at least three hours before bed.

You can track how low your allostatic load is and how high your recovery is before your one-month day by looking at your heart rate variability, your HRV, which is a key indicator of fitness stress and readiness for peak performance. You want to aim to get your HRV at or above your usual average 30-day range to heighten your flow proneness and be fit for the one-month day.

If there are any acute stressors in your life, save the one-month day for another day. You don't want to be doing a one-month day on the break of getting sick or after having had a week of terrible sleep or being plagued with jet lag.

The second piece is to clear your cognitive load. Research has shown that flow triggers work by decreasing cognitive load. Start with erasing all possible decisions from the day. Don't wake up wondering where you're going to work, what you'll wear, or what you'll eat. Prep your clothes, commute, and food the night before.

Save all decision making for your time spent in flow on the work. Rather than on the minutia within the day required to get to doing the work. Treat this process as if you're preparing for a 3 a.m. flight where every detail is planned out the night before.

Your bags are packed, you're checked in for the flight, your boarding pass and passport are already in your pocket and you have a ride to get to the airport. That's the level of preparation needed to truly pull off a one-month day.

The next step for clearing cognitive load is to wrap up all loose ends, go through all your texts, respond to everything as needed, ping whoever you need to ping, and wrap up any final dangling tasks. The rule here is zero open loops are allowed for the one-month day.

The final step for clearing your cognitive load is to set your workspace up to be a flow dojo. A chaotic physical environment mirrors mental chaos. So organize your workspace as carefully as you would arrange the tree lights, stockings and gifts for the kids on Christmas morning.

Step 3. Guard yourself against flow blockers

Now that you've cleared the load to boost your flow proneness, it's time to guard yourself against everything that will threaten your ability to hit the target that we've already set during your one-month day.

And that brings us to number three, which is to build an impenetrable flow fortress within which you're going to carry out your one-month day.

First, free yourself from the phone. If working at an office, keep your phone at home. Leave it there. If working at home, turn it off and store it in the back shed. Lock it up or give it to your spouse. Whatever you've got to do. The rule here is simple. It's out of reach and hard to even access.

Keeping your phone in the room, even if it's off, is like keeping your car door open all night. You'll drain the battery of your brain. Your brain has to work hard to ignore the phone's constant promise of effortless reward, of easy dopamine.

My flow fortress is here in LA in a garage and what I like to do is turn off the phone and put it in my bedroom which is on the floor above. Out of sight, out of mind.

The next thing we want to do is to go dark. No emails, texts, calls or instant messaging. All notifications turned off and we want to inform people beforehand that we're not going to be available for the entire day. Everyone needs to know you'll be unreachable and you need the peace of mind that you won't be interrupted.

Then you want to block everything on your computer except what you're working on. Use tools like self-control or freedom to make accessing specific sources of distraction nearly impossible.

And of course, you want to set up a disruption-free environment. Research by Gloria Mark highlights the hidden cost of disrupted work. Even a small task switch increases stress, drains cognitive resources, and extends the time it takes to finish a task.

Even after the disruption ends, your brain needs a significant chunk of time, about 21 minutes, to regain concentration. This is why trying to do a one-month day in an office with the disruptions of swarming colleagues or at home with kids running around will not work, not even close.

If needed, check into a hotel or co-working space for the day. There's even famous stories of people booking 15-plus hour-long flights and doing their one-month day to protect themselves from interruption.

You'll love having this kind of impenetrable attention, and you'll notice how deep the flow state that you end up immersing in will become.

The last step in building a flow fortress is to make self-distraction impossible. During the one-month day, you can count on this happening. You're deep in the flow, words flying, code compiling, creativity crackling, and then BAM! An idea unrelated to your task pops in.

An errand you forgot to run intrudes with urgency. Or you think of something you need to tell a colleague. Well, if you give in to these distracting thoughts, your focus will fracture like a dropped mirror, shattering slowly into multiple pieces.

These sorts of thoughts are particularly likely to drop into your head when you're offline. That's because it's easy to get worried about not checking in. The way to deal with this impulse to self-distract is to take a note, take a breath, and then take a quick walk.

That is, keep a notepad with you during your one month day specifically dedicated to externalizing the thoughts that will pop up. So rather than acting on those thoughts, you jot them down. You get it out of your head to lower cognitive load and then you get back into flow.

With all distractions and disruptions guarded against, it's time to dive into the one month day itself.

Step 4. Flow block stacking

When you run the one month day you are flow stacking and specifically you are stacking flow blocks together. A flow block is a discrete chunk of time usually one to two hours in which you allocate all of your attention to the task at hand so that you tap into flow and milk that flow state for all that it is worth.

Here's how you can dive into your first flow block when your brain is the most primed for flow.

Step 5. Wake up and flow

My partner Stephen Kotler has written over a dozen best-selling books. He wrote all of them by waking up at 4:30 to the borderline between alpha and theta. This is a way to shortcut it. Even if you're half asleep and groggy, drop right into your most important task. Within 15 minutes, you'll wake up in a flow state while working.

This dream-to-waking state is when your flow-proneness is naturally at its peak. It might be a struggle at first, state 1 of the flow cycle being the struggle phase, but once you get through the initial rough patch, you release into a flow state more quickly.

Step 6. Cement the commitment

During the one-month day, as you move through one flow block after another, entering and exiting the flow cycle multiple times in a single day, it's key to not let yourself get derailed during any of your quick breaks.

For me, the biggest saboteur of the one-month day is when I let its specialness erode. For example, checking my WhatsApp just for a minute in the morning. Getting one quick call in because it's really important and I felt I couldn't delay it.

I've learned that the one month day needs to be completely categorically distinct from every other day in your life. You want to think of it like a cherished holiday tradition. You faithfully observe all the rituals that make it special.

You need the one month day to be sacrosanct. Too important, valuable or special to be interfered with. It will erode into normalcy and the composure will fall apart.

So to make the one-month day sacrosanct, we can leverage a powerful external flow trigger and use our cognitive biases to work for us instead of against us.

First, we can embed the external flow trigger of high consequences. As action sports athletes can attest, a high consequence environment demands that we summon a higher degree of skill and focus than what is typically required. In the brain, the higher-consequence flow trigger activates the amygdala, which processes emotions like fear and anxiety.

It signals to the rest of the brain that something important is at stake, thereby increasing neurochemical responses. Adrenaline, dopamine, and norepinephrine are released, sharpening focus and reaction time.

To heighten the high consequences, ritualize the one-month day. Treat it as a sacred experience. You're dedicating yourself to accelerating your most meaningful impact or goals.

For example, you can check into your dream hotel, work in the lobby during the day, and buy the highest-end massage in the spa. Pay to make it an event, a special event, a sacrosanct day that you are backing with finances to create financial stakes.

There's immense pleasure in ritualizing this. Buy your favorite snacks or meal. Wear your favorite clothes. Schedule your favorite social gathering for the next day. and do the most pleasurable recovery activities - that ice bath and sauna that you love - a beach workout - pepper the day with pleasurable rewards.

Investing in making the one-month day sacrosanct leverages our cognitive biases in our favor - in particular, the sunk cost fallacy. Once you've invested in setting up the perfect work conditions, your brain will fight to avoid squandering the resources you spent on that setup.

This urges us to stay consistent and combats the temptation to give up and boosts your motivation to power through the one-month day.

The building blocks for running a one-month day

Now that you have the building blocks for running a one-month day, let's dive into the actual hour-by-hour schedule.

Most people have one of two reactions to this when they see it. Reaction one, isn't this a recipe for overworking and burnout? Well, in reality, working too hard isn't really a thing. Under-recovering is.

And part of how we get in the right amount of recovery, which replenishes our energy, is by entering and exiting the flow cycle multiple times in a single day.

The beauty with the one month day is that you are oscillating like an Olympian from extreme exertion to extreme recovery and back to extreme exertion.

So let's bring this schedule to life with a quick play by play. This play by play is based on the schedule of early risers, those who wake up at around 5 a.m. Rising early isn't a prerequisite. Your biology will have its unique prime time. Just start when you're most flow prone historically.

If you are an early riser, move the start of the day up a few hours and run the equivalent schedule starting a little bit later.

Here's what a one-month day actually looks like.

5 a.m. to 8 a.m., we have flow block one. Your eyes open because you prioritize sleep. You feel alert instead of groggy. For the first flow block, wake up and flow. This is your body's prime time. Pull up the task you carefully targeted the night before and dive in. Push past any initial struggle and then let that momentum build.

Most people can flow for an hour before needing a quick boredom break. Focused attention draws on cognitive control resources, which deplete over time. A brief non-stimulating break allows these resources to replenish, much like a muscle resting.

The key is to keep these breaks short and non-stimulating. Don't do anything that will suck you in and prevent you from getting back into flow. Just sit there and stare at a blank wall for a few minutes, and you'll be surprised by how quickly you'll regain energy and be itching to get back to work.

Now, 8 to 9 a.m., we're going to do some non-stimulating recovery. You've banked three hours of ultra-efficient time spent in flow. You've moved through the flow cycle, struggle, release, flow. Now it's time to do the fourth phase, recovery.

To recover, take a longer break. Do a flow-proneness reboot. Meditate. Do yoga. Take a cold shower and incubate. Come up with ideas from your work. Integrate what you've just completed. Ideally, you remain in a fasted state. Food can often be a flow deterrent, depending on your metabolic fitness and health.

You can remove this variable for another three hours. If needed, have 100 mg of caffeine to stave off hunger and 200 mg of L-theanine for a significant cognitive boost with the L-theanine cutting down any angst the caffeine might bring on.

This primes you for the next flow block, 9am to 12pm. It's time to jump into another three hours of flow. As long as you didn't get distracted, you should be raring to go. It's time to restart the flow cycle, roll up your sleeves, take a breath, push past the struggle phase, and watch tasks vanish steadily from your list as you continue your relentless pace.

From 12 to 1 p.m., we want non-stimulating recovery again. You've moved through the first three phases of the flow cycle and gone to the other side. To keep this pace up, a quick recovery is needed. Take a nap, a quick walk, or do some stretching.

From 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., it's time for flow block three. You've had a chance to reboot and recover. Now it's time to jump back into the fray. You've got three more hours to keep the momentum going.

From 4 p.m. to 5 p.m., we want non-stimulating recovery again. You've moved through the first three phases of the flow cycle and gone to the other side. To keep this pace up, a quick recovery is needed. Take a nap, a quick walk, or do some stretching.

From 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., the fourth flow block. This is it. Approach these last three hours of flow like it's the end of a marathon. When competing with world-class competitors, it's that final stretch, even the last ten seconds, that leads to victory.

Have water handy. Open the window for fresh air. Crank the air conditioner to keep you vigilant. Blast some epic tunes as you're working to stay in the zone. Leave nothing in the tank in this final flow sprint. Persist and finish the day strong.

Then at 8pm we want to recover and relax. Congratulations! By flow stacking and repeatedly entering and exiting the flow cycle, you've managed to get 11 intense, deeply focused hours of flow state wedged into a single day.

Now, there's a way to get even more out of the one-month day, and that is to supercharge your creative rumination before, during, and afterward. To learn how, click the video on screen.