Flow state - Where did it go?
Feb 27, 2026 · 5 min readFlow state, being “in the zone”. It’s magical, enjoyable, highly productive, but also elusive.
I used to have it more than I do nowadays, and I’m wondering more and more why this is the case. It’s addictive, so you want more of it, and it’s frustrating to not have it as much.
First of all, let’s clarify what it is.
Flow in positive psychology, also known colloquially as being in the zone or locked in, is the mental state in which a person performing some activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity.
The more I’ve thought about this, the more it comes down to three things: how we synchronise as teams, how we react to change, and how we collaborate. All three have shifted over the years, and I think each one has chipped away at the conditions that make flow state possible.
Sync time
A bunch of years ago, the daily sync call was a thing. The trend I see nowadays is that the daily call is something teams want to drop. And I get it. Done badly, it’s a status report that nobody enjoys. People sit there, half listening, waiting for their turn to speak. I understand why teams push back on that.
However, I’m a big fan of the early morning call. Not the “what did you do yesterday” variety, but a proper team sync. What’s blocking us? What’s changed? Who needs help? When done right, it can identify who needs support and what the most pressing priority is for the team. It allows the team to self-manage and align on the day ahead.
The alternative, which I see more and more, is no structured sync at all. Instead, we end up synchronising constantly throughout the day via online chat tools. A question here, a thread there, a “quick one” that pulls you out of what you were doing. The daily call, done well, is fifteen minutes of structured alignment that buys you hours of uninterrupted focus. Without it, the sync doesn’t go away. It just spreads itself across the entire day. Flow state dies by a thousand pings.
Reacting to change
Reacting to change is a balance, isn’t it? React all the time, and you’d never get anything done. Sticking to a rigid plan will mean you cannot capitalise on opportunities. But there is a sweet spot. Sometimes it’s best just to take a moment.
What concerns me is how instant the reaction has become. We live in a world shaped by social media, where everything demands an immediate response. FOMO in all its painful glory. That mindset has bled into how we work. A message lands in a Slack channel and the instinct is to react now, pivot now, change direction now. Not because the situation demands it, but because that’s the muscle we’ve all been training outside of work.
I’m seeing a pattern where code is written, then minds are changed, and we don’t end up shipping what was built. If we had done nothing, arguably you would be further ahead, as time would have been spent on something else. That’s not an argument against adapting. It’s an argument for giving decisions a little more time to settle before acting on them. The daily sync I mentioned above is one place where that pause can happen naturally. “Is this still the right thing to do?” is a powerful question to ask before the team starts their day.
Collaboration
Much like other frameworks and processes that start with good intentions, I wonder if pairing has become something else. If I look back over 20 years, I paired. We even mobbed. Probably before those terms even existed in the Zeitgeist. It was a tool to unblock or learn. The distinction was clear. If I didn’t know something, I’d ask for help. If two people didn’t know, we “would work through the issue together”.
There are good reasons pairing has grown in popularity. It’s great for sharing knowledge, for onboarding new team members, and for tackling genuinely complex problems where two perspectives catch things one might miss. I see the value in all of that.
But today, I fear it’s become the default way to ship code, rather than a tool you reach for when the situation calls for it. When pairing is always on, there’s no space for the deep, solitary focus that flow state requires. I personally find flow state unachievable in pairing mode. Others may be able to do this, and if so, that’s brilliant. For me, the best work happens when I can disappear into a problem for a few hours, and then come back to the team with something to show for it.
So what do we do about it?
These three things are connected. Without a structured sync, we fill the gap with constant interruptions. Those interruptions make us reactive, which makes us change direction too quickly. And when we’re always collaborating in real time, there’s simply no room left for the kind of deep focus that flow state demands.
I don’t think any of this is unsolvable. A short, focused daily call. A culture where not everything needs an instant response. Pairing as a tool, not a default. None of these are radical ideas, but they do require intention. Flow state doesn’t just happen. You have to protect the conditions that allow it to exist.
I miss it, and I want it back.