Free flow: unlocking creativity and your best performance

Experts say entrepreneurs, athletes, and writers all enter 'flow state' when they really concentrate on the task at hand — it's a reward in itself but also can increase productivity 

Flow means "becoming so absorbed in whatever we are doing that the rest of the world vanishes from our consciousness and there is only the task at hand. We enter this state when doing an activity we enjoy, that requires concentration and at which we are skilled", says Brendan Kelly, professor of psychiatry at TCD and author of The Science of Happiness.

Fergus Kerrigan spends several days a month alone by himself in an empty room with a whiteboard in front of him and a marker in his hand.

“When I’m standing there, away from my devices and any possibility of interruption, I can free up my headspace and come up with all sorts of ideas,” says the 33-year-old entrepreneur.