Imagine it’s Friday afternoon. You’ve just put in 8 hours of work.
At the end of the day, you look back at what you actually got done.
“Okay… I emailed 10 potential clients, coded a new feature for my app, and wrote an X thread to promote my product.”
And then it hits you:
Wait. That’s it?
Last Friday, you did the same amount of work in less than two hours. How is that possible?
You realize what went wrong. Your phone was lying next to your laptop, so every 10 minutes you checked for new emails or Slack messages. You didn’t really have a clear plan either — after the first 5 outreach emails, you weren’t even sure who the next 5 should be because you hadn’t mapped out your day.
I know this pain very well.
During my studies, whenever I had to work on an assignment, I basically procrastinated. I’d go on social media to “find inspiration”, watch another dopamine detox video on YouTube because “now I’ll go monk mode”, or get some snacks because “I can’t focus when I’m hungry”.
That’s why Rian Doris’s work on peak performance hit me so hard.
Rian is a YouTuber, CEO of FlowState, and a neuroscientist with credentials from King’s College London and Trinity College Dublin. He has spent over 10 years researching how to reliably get into a peak performance state — what most people call “flow” — and reflecting on what actually works in real life.
In this article, I’ll walk you through his 11 key principles and show you how to use them to reach your peak performance state as often as possible.
Part 1: The Flow Foundation: Understanding The Flow Cycle
1. Recovery Is Part Of The Work (Not The Afterthought)
Most of the people ( including past me), treat recovery like a nice bonus after the main course. But neuroscience tells us otherwise:
Recovery is the 4th stage of the flow cycle. The cycle works like this:
- Struggle ⇒ You struggle with getting into the flow because it is outside your comfort zone
- Release ⇒ after a few minutes, you transition from conscious effort into automatic execution
- Flow ⇒ In this stage, you have a high focus and a high output
- Recovery ⇒ after a certain amount of time, your mind is depleted, so your nervous system has to reset and enable the overall flow cycle to repeat
Without sufficient recovery, your next flow state will be way weaker than your current one.
If you can recover faster and cleaner, you can move through the recovery stage faster and can access the next flow state way quicker.
Schedule your recovery phase like you schedule your work. But do not think that recovering is lying down on your bed and scrolling through the latest Instagram reels. This will most likely drain your mental energy even faster and will ruin your entire workday.
I used to think that scrolling through YouTube shorts while listening to a motivational speech compilation is recovery. It wasn’t. I would come back with more mental fatigue than before. But after I switched to drinking a few glasses of water and doing a quick meditation round, my next flow phase was as good as the one before.
The Trap: Relaxation ≠ Recovery
Relaxation feels good. You sit on your couch with a nice beer, watching Netflix. Your body is resting, so it must be recovery, right?
WRONG!
Your brain is still being stimulated by the TV. There’s no real pause. You’ll get up feeling more drained, not restored.
Recovery is measurable. It reduces the allocated stress you gathered throughout your work cycle and resets your nervous system. Most of the time, a good measure for your recovery is the heart rate variability, also called HRV. If it improves after an activity, you actually recover.
Instead of asking yourself if this feels relaxing, ask yourself if this will improve your physiological baseline.
What Real Recovery Looks Like
High-quality recovery activities:
- Go for a walk without your phone
- Stretch for 5–10 minutes
- Breathwork or meditation
- Cold plunge or sauna session
- Strategic napping
- Do literally nothing — sit and stare at your wall
- Call your grandma
Fake recovery activities:
- Mindless scrolling
- Passive entertainment (Netflix, YouTube, TikTok)
- Comfort eating
The goal is simple: give your brain nothing to process so it can actually reset.
2. You Can Build Your Flow Stamina
Here is the good news: Your ability to focus is like a muscle: you can train it to get into longer, deeper flow states. You do not have to stay with your current flow capacity forever.
Just as humans can go from 300lbs overweight to running ultra marathons (Shotout to David Goggins), you can go from 15 minute flow sessions to 3+ hours of deep work sessions at a time.
Of course, when I first heard about the concept of the flow state, I immediately tried to do a focus session for 3 hours (because starting small is for noobs, right?) … and after 5 minutes, I liked the next Instagram reel.
In order to achieve these transformations, you must practice attention span stretching: Deliberately sustain your attention on one target for longer than you currently can, while avoiding losing your focus.
It will feel uncomfortable and your brain will look for an escape. That is the whole point!
Rian’s favorite example of how he practices to stretch his attention span is to read a full book while being on an 11 hour flight, without losing his focus.
Every time you sustain your attention for longer than is comfortable for you, you build up your ability to focus deeper on one thing at a time.
How to Start
- Pick one task: writing, reading, coding — whatever requires real focus.
- Set a time block slightly longer than what’s comfortable for you. (If 20 minutes feels easy, try 30.)
- Focus only on that task. No phone, no tabs, no “quick checks.”
- When your mind wanders , and trust me, it will , notice it and bring it back. Just like meditation.
That’s one rep. Do it daily, and your focus will compound.
3. Take low-stimulating breaks
Most people, including myself, are taking their breaks wrong. They finish their focused work, then grab their phone and go onto social media or YouTube and waste at least the next 30 minutes consuming content that wont even benefit them.
And after they have gotten themselves to focus back onto their work task, they will have a difficult time, because their mind is still living in the reels/videos they saw a few minutes ago.
Oh, this sweet little dog with his sunglasses ! And should I hear on that money guru and try his get rich quick scheme, where I will sell cheap china stuff on my Shopify store?
Because the work will feel way more boring than the break, it will be difficult for you to concentrate.
Here the hack is to have such a boring break that you can’t wait to come back to work, because working is much more exciting than the lame break.
Your breaks have to give you less dopamine than your work.
Here are some good examples of ,,boring breaks”:
- Take a walk outside without your phone or any other distracting gadgets ( no, also no mp3 players)
- Stretch
- Get yourself a coffee, tea, or some water
- Stare at your beautiful wall
- Look at the sky
- Lie down briefly
That’s it. 5–10 minutes of low stimulation.
When you come back, you’ll actually want to reach out to that client, code that feature, or,…okay, maybe not do your accounting. (I refuse to believe anyone gets excited about that.)
Next time, when your attention dips during deep work, take a 5–10 minute low-stimulating break and experience your motivation come back, when you eventually start working again.
Part 2: Mental Models: How To Think About Productivity
4. Purpose As A Focusing Mechanism
If your only motivation comes from money, praise, or fame, you’re very vulnerable to the shiny-object syndrome. You will bounce between many different opportunities without building anything meaningful.
I know this because I lived it.
For a long time, my only goal was to make money online as fast as possible. I “researched” every method: dropshipping, print-on-demand, affiliate marketing, YouTube Shorts, SMMA, random “side hustle” websites. I tried all of them.
And the sad thing is I never stuck with anything really, because instead of helping people and changing lives, my only motivation was to make money as fast as possible.
Your real purpose is something different. It is a performance multiplier that focuses you in the moment and over the next years.
When you fully commit to solving a specific problem for a long time, your brain will make progress intrinsically rewarding, because it becomes part of your identity.
But the key trick here is not trying to find your purpose, but rather picking a problem ( for example, climate change or male loneliness) and committing to solving this problem fully.
Write one sentence down: ,,The problem I want to solve is …”. Make solving this specific problem your purpose.
Once you have written down your problem statement, you can use it as a filter. When standing in front of any decision, ask yourself if this will move you forward in solving this problem. If the answer is yes, by all means, go ahead and do it. But if the answer is no, then you should really consider not doing it, because it will distract you from your purpose.
Let’s take me for example. My purpose is to create as much value as possible in this world. Before writing this article, I considered (after watching another how to get rich quickly video) to make brain-rot short-form content. But after I recalled my intrinsic purpose, I quickly deleted this thought from my brain, because this won’t benefit anybody except myself. I would rather be poor but do something I am proud of than be rich knowing I made the life of many people harder.
After you write down your sentence, simply put it somewhere where you can see it all the time, like on your phone screen or next to your workplace.
5. Avoid Focusing On Multiple Areas At A Time
Once you have chosen your problem statement, you have to protect your focus by refusing to split it.
When your cognitive resources are scattered across multiple goals, you will pay a hidden tax in every work session.
Here is what happens, when you have multiple priorities at the same time:
- Decide what you want to work on: your SaaS or, rather, your YouTube video, or should you start a dropshipping store?
- Carve out cognitive space to do it
- Start the actual work
But if you just have one core focus, your productive work will look like this:
- Start the work
So steps 1 and 2 vanish. You eliminate the decision fatigue that comes up with every single decision you have to do throughout the day. That is also why you will perform better in the morning than in the evening, because in the morning, you don’t have gathered as much decision fatigue as in the evening.
Just imagine running 3 side projects and every day, you ask yourself on which one you want to work on today. Your brain now has to evaluate all 3 projects, assess their different contexts, and maybe start the work. By then, most of your motivation is already down the toilet.
Now imagine you just have one priority and nothing else matters to you. You do not have to ask yourself what you want to work on. You will immediately know and go right into action.
That is also why many people in the self-development space preach the habit of planning your day the night before. It takes away pretty much all the energy you normally need for your decisions.
Just remember this: If you have to ask yourself in the morning ,,What do I have to work on today?” you are already behind.
Implement this habit: The night before, write down your top 3 priorities, and if you really want to level up, create a timetable for your next day.
6. Eliminate, Do Not Just Optimize
When I started in the “online-business” world, I optimized my entire day with different time-management techniques. Why? Because it allowed me to write a YouTube script, create a TikTok video, write a new feature on my main SaaS product and also start a new SaaS product on the side.
Looking back, the answer was obvious: I didn’t need better systems. I needed fewer projects. This is what Rian Doris calls “dumb optimization”.
,,Dumb optimization” is spending energy improving something fundamentally misaligned with your goals.
Just implement this filter into your life: If something actively harms your focus or your output, don’t build a workaround. Eliminate it!
Now identify one ,,dumb optimization” you are doing. This week, give it all your best to cut it off completely.
7. Doing Nothing Will Make You Better At Doing Everything
There is a huge hype right now about “dopamine detox” and “just lock in bro”.
And although it can help you a little bit, it won’t benefit you in the long run. You can’t just eliminate all the dopamine, because dopamine is essential for your survival.
Research on mice showed that when their dopamine receptors were blocked, they lost all motivation, even to eat cheese placed directly in front of them. They starved. Not because they couldn’t move, but because they didn’t want to.
Dopamine is not the enemy, an overstimulated dopamine system is.
Instead of having a small dopamine detox for 7 days or locking in for 30 days, you have to build habits and systems for the long run, where you eliminate the high-stimulating lifestyle you are currently living. You have to desensitize your reward system.
When I was deep in video game addiction, I couldn’t enjoy anything real.
A sunset? Boring. Hiking with friends? I’d rather leveling up in CoD. My reward system was so fried that only high-stimulation activities registered as “fun.”
I’ve cut most of those habits now, though I’ll be honest, I’m still fighting a YouTube addiction. Part of my brain believes that if I’m not watching, I’ll miss the one tip that changes my life.
(I know that’s irrational. I watch anyway.)
But if you improve your tolerance for nothing, with low-stimulating activities like quiet thinking or starring at your wall, your reward systems will increase, and boring stuff becomes way more rewarding.
Most of the professional breakthroughs require a tolerance of boredom. Long-form writing, deep coding sessions, or reading a book and taking notes without any distractions will become much more exciting.
So here is how you can apply it:
- Build a daily low-stimulation window. Block 30–60 minutes with no phone, no entertainment, no inputs. Just you and your thoughts (or one focused task).
- Stop filling every gap with stimulation. Waiting in line at the supermarket? Don’t reach for your phone. Let your mind rest.
- Practice single-tasking. When you transition between tasks, resist the urge to check something. Just… move to the next thing.
Part 3: Execution — Attention and Leverage
8. Flow Before Using Your Phone
The more I use my phone, the less sharp I become.
This isn’t just a feeling. Trillion-dollar companies employ armies of the best UI/UX designers and psychologists in the world to capture and hold your attention. So don’t only count on your willpower, your enemy is way to strong. Their whole business model is to misallocate as much of your time as possible against your goals.
Here is the simple rule:
When you wake up, don’t check email, Slack, or Instagram. Don’t even touch your phone if you can avoid it.
Instead, go straight into 1.5–3 hours of deep work on your most important task. Put your phone in another room if you have to.
After that block, you’ve earned the right to check your phone.
Once your phone is on, your attention fades fast. So protect your best hours.
Apply it tomorrow morning:
- Keep your phone away from your bed tonight.
- When you wake up, start your highest-leverage work immediately — no email, no Slack, no scrolling.
- Work for 90 minutes to 3 hours before touching your phone.
(Exception: If your highest-leverage work requires your phone, like cold outreach or important calls, then by all means, use it. Just don’t open Instagram “for a second.”)
9. Fulfillment Requires Routine
Here’s something I didn’t understand for years:
I thought: “Well, when I accomplish this goal, I’ll finally feel fulfilled.”. But every time I hit a milestone, like finishing a project, my satisfaction faded fast. I would feel a high for a maximum of one day and then empty again.
Because the thing that was missing wasn’t more wins. Instead, I needed continuous growth.
Abraham Maslow’s research on self-actualization taught us that humans need to grow and evolve to feel deeply fulfilled and proud of themselves. Not just learning something occasionally, but learning continuously.
I have created a habit for me where every day, I will learn something new for at least 30 minutes. I do what my mind wants to learn about: a new programming language, a new time management technique or simply a few new words in English.
But the hard truth is:
Without a consistent routine that protects time for your growth, you won’t grow in the long run. And if you’re not growing, fulfillment stays out of reach.
Now, in order to apply this principle, define your growth tools through these questions:
- What do I need to do daily to grow (core work, movement, learning through a Udemy course)
- What do I need to do weekly (weekly review on Sunday evening, planning the next week)
- What do I need to do monthly ( advance my skills, go on networking events, check on my milestones)
Make your growth tools a non-negotiable. They are not just some tasks; they are your foundation for fulfillment.
10. Prioritize Leverage In People, Process And Proficiency
In your late teens and early twenties, let’s be honest: you don’t have much to offer except time and energy.
You trade hours for output. More hours, more results. That’s the only equation you know.
But as you advance, you realize: leverage changes everything.
The Leverage Trifecta
Rian Doris breaks leverage into three sources:
1. People One exceptional hire can generate more output than you ever could alone. The right person, with the right mindset and skills, lets you outcompete companies with 10x your budget but weaker teams.
2. Process Automation and systems. A workflow that turns a 15-hour weekly task into 15 minutes, and keeps producing forever.
3. Proficiency Your own knowledge and skills. The more you know, the more you can generate with any given input. You stop guessing and start executing.
The Missing Lever: Task Selection
I’d add a fourth lever that’s easy to overlook: what you choose to work on.
You can have world-class leverage on the wrong task and still lose to someone with no leverage working on the right one.
Leverage multiplies output, but only if the output matters.
But here is the part that most people hate about this. You will experience an output dip because the time you put into building/acquiring these levers, you will not generate any output for your goals. Most people can’t tolerate this, because it feels ,,unproductive” and ,,what if it does not work out?” and will get back to grinding themselves.
But if you are the type of person who can tolerate 3–6 months of lower output while building your levers, you will eventually unlock exponential returns.
The best place to start is ( what you are currently doing, respect!), leveling up your ability to get into the flow state. You will improve the quality of the hours you are putting in.
So how can you apply it? This quarter, identify one lever you want to build up:
- People: What role could you hire for?
- Process: Which task could you systematize/automate/delete completely
- Proficiency: What skills would multiply your output most?
Pick one, tolerate the output dip, and experience exponential growth!
11. Wake Up & Directly Get Into The Flow
You’ve seen the advice: wake up, meditate, journal, exercise, drink your coffee, check your goals… then start working. By the time you sit down, two hours have passed.
But here’s the thing:
When you wake up, your mental load is at its lowest. You haven’t thought, talked, or read anything yet. According to Rian Doris, your brain waves are near the “alpha-theta borderline”, almost identical to the brain state of deep flow.
You’re neurologically primed for flow. So go straight into it.
So skip the elaborate morning routine. Sit down and start your most important work within the first few minutes of waking up.
The better approach after Rian Doris:
- Wake up and skip the morning routine. Go straight to work
- Slide into your 3-hour flow block with minimal struggle
- After 3 hours, do your recovery protocol: exercise, meditate, walk,…
- Reprime your system for the next flow block with these recovery inputs
- Repeat this loop one or two more times throughout the day if energy permits
A Personal Note
I’ll be honest: I still do a short morning routine: meditation, journaling and a quick walk. It makes my day feel better, even if it costs some early productivity.
Find what works for you. But at minimum, try Rian’s approach for a week and see how it feels to capture your best brain state before anything else touches it.
Implementation Roadmap
If you do not want to do a plan for yourself, here is a 4-week plan to implement these learnings:
Week 1: Foundation
- Identify your recovery protocol (what actually restores you?)
- Set one purpose statement
- Start pre-deciding your top 3 daily priorities the day before
Week 2–3: Attention
- Implement “flow before phone” (3-hour morning block)
- Replace one high-stimulating break with a low-stimulating alternative
- Start attention span stretching (at least one long focus session weekly, try to use progressive overload)
Week 4+: Leverage
- Define your growth routine (daily/weekly/monthly)
- Spot one dumb optimization to eliminate
- Identify one leverage play (people, process, or proficiency)
Ongoing:
- Track HRV or subjective recovery quality
- Review your purpose filter weekly (does this align?)
- Build your leverage tolerance and expect the output dip
Final Thoughts
Rian Doris wishes he’d known these principles at 20. Now you have the privilege of knowing them in your 20s (or early career, doesn’t matter)
You already know most of this. Deep down, you know scrolling is killing your focus. You know your “breaks” aren’t actually breaks. You know you’re avoiding the hard work.
The only difference between you in 90 days and you today is whether you implement ONE of these principles this week.
Not all 11. Just one.
So here’s your challenge: Pick the principle that made you most uncomfortable while reading. That discomfort is your signal.
Screenshot it. Set it as your phone wallpaper. Implement it for 14 days.
Then come back and tell me what changed.
What’s the one principle you’re committing to?
