EPTYou're surely aware of it. It's that state that your mind slips into where hours pass like minutes, where you have a hightened sense of focus and awareness, where you can easily channel your mind into substance. For me, it has always been something fairly elusive. Something that I'd find myself in, without intending to be there. I'd come out of the other side of the zone feeling great about the work I was doing, but never gave much thought into how I could essentially get there on a whim.
Enter The Art of Learning (as recommended by Day[9]). A part of this book talks about the zone, and how to be able to get there. Part of my self-discovery while reading the book and afterwards has been the discovery that I already had a sort of ritual to get myself into the zone -- I just hadn't realized it. It's something I've actually built up over the years of being a Tech Lead at work, where I have trouble getting anything due to constant distractions. It turns out that my ritual is fairly simple.
1) Listen to music. (Generally the EVE Online soundtrack, which is the perfect blend of ambient electronic for me.)
2) Write or type into a journal. At work (and at home doing hobby game development), I have a dev journal that I write in prior to doing any work, that helps orient my mind like the field in a magnet.
3) Breathe. This step is one I didn't discover until reading The Art of Learning.
So as it turns out, I can pretty much submerge myself into the zone by listening to ambient music, writing, and breathing deeply. This blog actually serves as step two prior to playing SC2.
With that in mind, time to play!
