If your attention seizes on the fact that you are in the zone, you'll start noticing yourself drop out. Your attention is no longer on the task at hand and your

If your attention seizes on the fact that you are in the zone, you'll start noticing yourself drop out. Your attention is no longer on the task at hand and your mental energy pours into that self-awarenes. If you let the observation pass you by as a ephemeral phenomena, living and dying naturally, you flow with the self-awareness of flow. Allowing the distractions to flow past you while you stay focused on the task at hand is what gives the optimal results. Trying to completely numb yourself to distractions won't work a well. That's why there's something in the Pomodoro technique where you make a hash tick and write down what you want to do later; it flushes that thought out of the queue. It also keeps your peripheral awareness opened up so that your right-brain-side can explore alternate avenues and come up with innovative, and occasionally creative solutions. If you stay focused strictly by blocking everything else out, you gain tunnel vision. In that state, a person crushes obstacles by banging his head against it enough times. Otherwise known as Brute Force and leads to Sunk Cost Fallacy. Physical relaxation is also very important -- so good, supportive posture, deeper and relaxed breathing. If you want to practice all of this in a deeper way, I recommend http://www.vipassana.com/meditation/mindfulness_in_plain_english.php http://www.vipassana.com/meditation/mindfulness_in_plain_eng... This concept and the way to enter "flow" is not new. It's pretty ancient. I've used the Pomodoro technique to configure my work environment, but mindfulness is what I practice to optimize my ability to perform.