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- Issue No. 182: How to Enter a 'Flow State' on Command
Issue No. 182: How to Enter a 'Flow State' on Command
Want to Change Your Life? First Change Your Algorithm
Jenae Spry
May 16, 2025
In partnership with
Productivity Express
Issue No. 182
The Best in Evidence-Based Productivity
for Small Business Owners, Freelancers & Founders
Helping You Work Smarter and Live More
The Rundown
The Psychology of "Meh"
Want to Change Your Life? First Change Your Algorithm
How to Enter a 'Flow State' on Command: Peak Performance Mind Hack Explained in 7 Minutes
A new, open source text-to-speech model called Dia has arrived to challenge ElevenLabs, OpenAI and more
What I've Learned Testing Dozens Of AI Agents In 2025
Add this book to your reading list
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🔥Quote/Prompt
There is more to life than increasing its speed.
Use the quote as a writing or thinking prompt to finish your week strong.
A bit from mine:
(posted in our Doer Entrepreneurs Free Community — off social media)
In a world obsessed with the hustle and the grind, this quote hits me. I've found that true productivity isn't about doing MORE things FASTER... it's about doing the RIGHT things at the RIGHT pace.
When I work with clients to build systems for their brains and businesses, we focus first on effectiveness before efficiency. What good is a fast-moving train if it's on the wrong track?
Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is […]
Did someone forward this to you?
📈 Performance
If you’ve ever stared at your to-do list and just had an overwhelming feeling of “ughhhh”. It's not because you're broken or lazy—it's because modern productivity culture has us chasing checking boxes instead of meaning. This refreshingly honest article explains why your motivation tank is running on empty.
"You know the feeling: when even the act of replying to an email feels like trying to run a marathon in molasses. You start wondering: Am I just unmotivated? Lazy? Broken? But what if the real problem isn't a lack of motivation? What if you're not unmotivated—you're unmoved?"
Key Insights:
That so-called "laziness" you're beating yourself up about isn't a character flaw—research shows it's usually a symptom of burnout, depression, or lost purpose, especially when tasks that once felt meaningful now feel like pointless checkbox exercises.
Your motivation apps and fancy planners aren't cutting it because they're addressing the wrong problem—sustainable motivation comes from autonomy (I choose this), competence (I can do this), and relatedness (this matters to me and others).
The quickest way to break out of a motivational slump isn't pushing harder but evoking the feeling you want to have—play your favorite playlist, text someone you love, or do something small that helps someone to activate the emotion that'll fuel your momentum.
Read the full article for three practical strategies to reconnect with what actually moves you, including the simple reframing technique that can instantly shift your perspective on tasks you've been avoiding.
⚙️ Optimization
You’ve just finished yet another doom-scrolling session and your anxiety is sky high. Oops, no big deal. Or is it? It turns out they're not just making you miserable today; they're programming your brain to expect more misery tomorrow. This eye-opening article reveals how your clicks are quietly shaping your entire mental landscape.
"Every like, every click, every lingered second sends a tiny signal that says: 'More of this, please.' And those signals add up, creating a personalized world that can either expand or shrink our view of what's possible. Research shows that algorithms on social media can reinforce selective exposure, meaning the more we interact with certain types of content, the less likely we are to encounter alternative perspectives or emotional tones."
Key Insights:
The "you are what you eat" principle applies to your digital diet too – repeatedly consuming negative, sensationalized content literally trains your brain to scan for threats even when none exist, keeping you stuck in perpetual fight-or-flight mode.
Neuroplasticity isn't just a fancy science term – it's your brain's superpower to rewire itself based on what you pay attention to, which means you can intentionally train it to notice hope, humor, and beauty just as easily as you accidentally trained it to spot disasters.
"Bloomscrolling" (clicking on content that plants seeds of curiosity, joy, and wonder) isn't just about feeling better – positive emotions actually build lasting psychological resources that help you engage with life more creatively and courageously.
Read the full article for three practical strategies to shift both your algorithm and mindset, including how to audit your current inputs, curate for curiosity instead of outrage, and recognize that offline inputs matter just as much as what's on your screen.
⏲️ Time Management
Wouldn’t it be amazing if we could push a button and go into that magical zone where hours fly by and you suddenly realize you've crushed more work in 90 minutes than you normally do in a full day? Well, maybe you can. It's not just luck or good genes, there's actually a science to accessing that elusive "flow state" whenever you need it most.
"Being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you're using your skills to the utmost."
Key Insights:
Flow isn't some woo-woo concept invented by yoga teachers – it has serious scientific backing from researchers like Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (whose name is harder to spell than pronounce) and Steven Kotler, who's dedicated his career to cracking the code of peak human performance.
Your morning routine matters tremendously – Kotler avoids emails, notifications, and all other emotional assaults before his brain even "kicks out of its Alpha wave state," protecting that precious early morning time (while his night-owl wife doesn't hit her stride until evening).
There are 22 specific flow triggers that have been scientifically proven to keep your attention locked in the present moment – including the challenge-skills ratio (tasks should feel slightly out of reach) and immediate feedback, which pairs perfectly with our recent article "Unlocking the Flow State: The Science Behind Peak Performance" where we explored how expertise changes flow patterns in the brain.
Read the full article for the complete list of 22 flow triggers for individuals and 10 additional triggers for groups that want to function like a well-oiled machine, plus why people in flow states tend to frown slightly (good news if you've been told you have resting flow state face).
💻 Tools & Technology
Remember when AI voices all sounded like robots followed by robots that had just learned all of the wrong intonations of the language they’re supposedly speaking? Those days are officially over. A tiny two person startup just dropped an open source text to speech model that's making the tech giants sweat and you can download it right now for free.
"Dia supports nuanced features like emotional tone, speaker tagging, and nonverbal audio cues all from plain text. Users can mark speaker turns with tags like [S1] and [S2], and include cues like (laughs), (coughs), or (clears throat) to enrich the resulting dialogue with nonverbal behaviors."
Key Insights:
Dia isn't just another text to speech tool. It was built specifically to create natural sounding conversations with proper emotional range, something even the most advanced proprietary options struggle with (when Dia sees a script ending with "laughs," it actually laughs instead of awkwardly saying "haha" like its competitors).
This impressive model was created by just two engineers with "zero funding" and no prior AI expertise. They simply loved Google's NotebookLM podcast feature and wanted more control over the voices and scripts than any existing tool offered.
Unlike many powerful AI tools getting locked behind paywalls, Dia is fully open source under the Apache 2.0 license, meaning developers can use it commercially, drastically lowering the barrier to entry for indie app developers and even enterprise users.
Read the full article for side by side audio comparisons showing how Dia outperforms ElevenLabs and Sesame across various scenarios, from emotional emergency scenes to rap lyrics, plus details on how to download and implement the model yourself.
🤖 AI
The AI landscape has quietly shifted from passive chatbots to something far more powerful. While we were all playing with ChatGPT, tech companies have been racing to build autonomous AI agents capable of handling complex tasks with minimal supervision. A recent IBM survey reveals this isn't just a trend, it's nearly universal with 99% of enterprise AI developers actively exploring agent technology.
"Agents are poised to be the next big thing in AI. Generally speaking, they're autonomous tools with advanced reasoning and decision making capabilities. You give them a destination no map and they figure out how to get there on their own."
Key Insights:
Voice agents like VoiceOS are becoming the gateway to AI for everyday users, handling customer calls even during off hours and bringing a surprisingly human touch to interactions that go well beyond simple question answering.
Knowledge based agents such as Text.cortex allow you to build custom AI personalities with distinct roles like marketing strategist or legal assistant, all drawing from your own uploaded documents and remembering past interactions unlike standard chatbots.
Deep research agents show their work in real time, with products like Gemini capable of reviewing hundreds of sources while you watch, producing comprehensive reports that would normally take humans hours of manual research.
Read the full article for a breakdown of automation agents that can handle repetitive tasks completely independently, plus insights from industry leaders on why today's agents are fundamentally different from previous AI systems because they're "intelligent, dynamic, and practically useful."
👀 Read, Watch, Listen
This week’s awesome books, YouTube videos, newsletters, etc. to add to your list!
Building a StoryBrand 2.0 is an updated guide to Donald Miller's proven marketing framework that helps businesses create clear, compelling messages that cut through market noise. The book expands on the original's seven universal story elements and introduces new tools for brand messaging. This revised edition aims to help business leaders, from small business owners to corporate executives, better engage customers by communicating their unique value in a way that resonates. The framework has already helped over a million business leaders grow their companies through more effective customer communication.
🎉 Celebration Corner
Every week Doers Inner Circle members do a weekly review & get help when they need it — check out the progress they made this week!
The monthly planning session with Jenae has really helped with planning the goals for this week and checking them off.
Continuously revised and recalibrated goals.
Managed to stay organised and keep/feel reasonably on top of things.
What did you do this week? We feature non-member successes too. Just post them here!
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Wishing you much productivity!
- Jenae :)
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