In the Flow: Where Your Best Work Actually Happens
Why Deep Focus, Not Longer Hours, Is the Key to High Performance
I recently shared the bellow comic illustration with the message “How to get lucky.” It showed a single glowing window in a sea of darkness: someone working late into the night while the rest of the neighborhood slept.
As expected, some harsh responses poured in.
“You don’t need to ruin your health to succeed.”
“This has a toxic productivity vibe.”
“Sleep deprivation kills creativity.”
“Stop glorifying hustle.”
And they’re absolutely right.
Health matters. Sleep is essential. Burnout is real. I’m not here to romanticize exhaustion or suggest that success requires sacrificing your well-being.
But here’s what many people missed.
That image is not about self-destruction. It is about flow state. It is about being in the zone.
Some people find their best focus when the world goes quiet. After the messages stop. After the kids are asleep. When there is finally space to think. (Yes, that’s me.)
Of course, seeking luck or excellence doesn’t come from comfort alone. It comes from showing up with intentional focus. Not through burnout, but by knowing when you’re at your best and making space for it.
Not every late night is a red flag. Some are a reflection of purpose.
Let’s talk about what makes the difference.
The Magic of Flow
Have you ever sat down to work and, in just a couple of hours, accomplished more than you did the entire day before? It happens to me, more often than I’d like to admit.
That kind of productivity isn’t a fluke. It’s what psychologists call flow. Some people call it being “in the zone.” It’s a mental state where focus sharpens, distractions disappear, and time seems to bend.
Flow is a powerful mental state where you become so immersed in your work that the outside world fades away. You’re not just getting things done, you’re doing your best thinking. Ideas connect faster. You make decisions with clarity. You’re fully present, and it shows in the quality of your output.
For many of us, especially in engineering, that kind of clarity doesn’t always happen between nine and five. It tends to show up after the last meeting ends, when Slack is quiet, and your calendar finally stops demanding attention.
This isn’t about glorifying late nights. It’s about understanding the conditions that make deep focus possible. For some, that’s early mornings. For others, it’s the quiet of night. What matters isn’t when the work gets done, but how present you are when it does.
Psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, who coined the term flow, described it as:
“A state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience is so enjoyable that people will continue to do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.”
Flow doesn’t come from pressure. It comes from presence. It’s not about working harder. It’s about working with depth and clarity.
It can be hard to reach, but when it happens, you feel it. You’re immersed. Ideas connect effortlessly. You’re moving with focus and ease. And when you pause, you realize time has passed, but you barely noticed.
That’s the magic of flow. It’s rare, but when it shows up, it’s one of the most rewarding ways to work.
Productivity Is Personal: Early Birds vs. Night Owls
When it comes to productivity, there’s no one-size-fits-all schedule. Some people are sharp at sunrise. Others hit their stride long after the world winds down. Yet we still treat early risers as the gold standard, as if productivity only counts before noon.
But real productivity isn’t about conforming to the clock. It’s about understanding your natural rhythm and working with it, not against it.
I’m a night owl.
My focus doesn’t peak at sunrise. It usually kicks in after my kids go to bed, when the house is quiet and the world finally slows down. No meetings. No messages. No expectations. Just space. And in that silence, I often find flow.
Not every night. I’m not burning the candle seven days a week or entering the zone on demand. But when it happens, it’s deep, it’s creative, and it’s some of my best work.
And that’s the point.
Some people find their rhythm at dawn. Others, like me, find it after dark. One isn’t better than the other. What matters is knowing when you focus best, and protecting that time.
Trying to force night owls into early schedules doesn’t make them more productive. It just drains energy. Likewise, expecting early birds to stay sharp into the evening rarely ends well.
As Naval Ravikant once said:
“Escape competition through authenticity.”
The same holds true for productivity. When your work aligns with your natural rhythm, it becomes not only more effective but also more sustainable.
This isn’t an argument against structure. It’s a case for flexibility and self-awareness. What matters isn’t when the work gets done. It’s the quality, the intent, and the outcome.
Respect your rhythm. That’s where your best work actually happens.
Busy Isn’t the Enemy. Distraction Is.
You’ve probably heard the saying: “If you want something done, ask a busy person.” It’s not because they are over-committed. It’s because they have learned how to be busy with intention.
Being busy the right way means staying focused. These are the people who carve out time for deep work, guard their attention, and say no to what does not matter. They do not confuse motion with progress. They know what deserves their energy and when.
The irony? Many of them are also the ones who make space for rest, learning, exercise, and family. They work hard, but they work smart. And they understand that productivity is not about doing more. It is about doing what matters, when it matters, with full attention.
The real enemy is not being busy. It is being distracted. It is the nonstop pings. The meetings that should have been messages. The inbox that grows faster than your focus can recover.
True productivity, the kind that actually moves the needle, requires uninterrupted focus. And for many of us, especially if you’re a people manager, that kind of space only exists at the edges of the day.
As Cal Newport wrote in Deep Work:
“Clarity about what matters provides clarity about what does not.”
It is not about doing everything. It is about protecting what matters most.
Rest Is Part of the Work: The Antidote to Burnout
Let’s not confuse admiration for flow with a celebration of overwork. Just because someone can focus deeply late at night doesn’t mean they should live in a constant state of output.
Flow is not a replacement for rest, and it’s definitely not a strategy for burnout.
The top performers I’ve worked with, whether in engineering, leadership, or creative roles, all treat rest as part of the work. They understand what elite athletes know: recovery is not a break from training. It is training.
No one expects a sprinter to run at full speed every day without rest. Champions don’t just train harder. They recover smarter. They optimize for endurance, clarity, and longevity.
The same holds true in knowledge work. Sleep is not laziness. It is cognitive maintenance. Time off is not indulgent. It is how we stay sharp, creative, and emotionally present.
Flow is powerful, but it is not endless. When it becomes forced, when it replaces connection, reflection, or self-care, it loses what makes it valuable. What once felt energizing becomes draining.
Balance is not a luxury. It is the infrastructure that allows you to do deep work without crashing. As Arianna Huffington wrote in Thrive:
“Burnout is not the price you have to pay for success.”
Rest isn’t the opposite of great work. It’s what makes great work possible.
Leaders: Design for Flow, Not Control
If you’re in a leadership role, this is where your mindset matters most. Don’t measure your team by how early they log on or how late they stay. Measure them by outcomes. By the clarity of their thinking. By the quality of their work.
Your job is not to supervise hours. It’s to create the conditions for focus.
That means protecting time for deep work. Pushing back against unnecessary meetings. Letting go of the idea that real work only happens when everyone is online at the same time.
This is one of the many reasons I love remote and async work. It acknowledges a simple truth: not everyone feels productive at the same time. Some people need quiet mornings. Others find their focus after dark. Some need long stretches of uninterrupted time. Others work best in bursts. Remote work gives them the space to find their rhythm and own their results.
Synchronous work can be useful but defaulting to it stifles autonomy and flow. Leaders need to stop confusing constant visibility with real productivity.
Engineers don’t need more check-ins. They need more trust. They don’t need more structure. They need more space.
If you want high performance, build an environment where flow can happen, and then step aside and let it.
Jason Fried, in It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work, put it bluntly:
“Modern-day offices have become interruption factories… How can you expect anyone to get work done in an environment like that?”
The best teams don’t thrive in noise. They thrive in focus. And it’s your job to protect it.
Final Thoughts
“Great work doesn’t come from more hours. It comes from knowing when you’re at your best.
Respect your rhythm. That’s where your best work actually happens.”
Doing your best work isn’t about pushing harder. It’s about knowing when you’re at your best and creating the space for it to happen.
Sometimes that looks like a glowing window at 2 a.m. Sometimes it looks like a quiet morning with no meetings. What it doesn’t look like is forcing everyone into the same mold, schedule, or rhythm.
Flow is personal. Productivity is personal. And the environments we build, both for ourselves and for our teams, should reflect that.
Great work is not the result of nonstop hustle. It’s the outcome of clarity, intention, and trust. It comes from aligning effort with energy, not sacrificing health for output. And it lasts longer when it’s built on rest, not burnout.
So if you find your flow late at night, or in the early morning, or in between school runs and quiet afternoons, that’s not something to fix. That’s something to protect.
Your best work lives there.
Make space for it.
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This makes so much sense to me... The late-night window isn’t about proving how hard you work, it’s about finding that rare stretch where you can really think.
I agree, everyone has their own flow. The key is to find what works and stick with it.
But in the end, getting lucky often means outworking the average.