Respond to prefers-color-scheme dark in app web views

Follow section front redirects in Spectrum

Enable NLP source in PCS for load testing

Switch off the News Alerts Survey Widget when we have enough responses

Poll to determine if new LUF updates are available

Allows the winning A/B test variant to be turned on without Spectrum deployment

Show expanded byline information on articles

Show infinite scrolling sections in Assembler MultiView

Show option for NLP article summaries in Action Bar

Show NLP summaries collection recirc on article pages

A general feature flag for Recipe Features that aren't yet released

Feature flag for media team features that aren't yet released

Use new Orca video player for preroll plugin in Spectrum

Show the snow tracker (instead of the heat tracker) on Spectrum

She graduated from Yale after raising 3 kids. Her son was her classmate.

I was homeless as a kid. Here’s how I survived. 

Kittens or puppies? Animals left at shelter turned out to be foxes — again.

A year after paying off our 2.75% mortgage, we still have no regrets

Home-insurance payouts are shrinking. Here’s how to prevent the worst.

Maxed out on your credit card? Here’s how to dig out.

Debunking misinformation failed. Welcome to ‘pre-bunking’

Boeing continues to struggle with spacecraft problems ahead of human flight

Kabosu, side-eyeing Shiba inu who inspired the ‘doge’ meme, dies at 18

Trump told donors he will crush pro-Palestinian protests, deport demonstrators

U.S. and allies move to tap frozen Russian funds despite Kremlin threats

Progressive Democrats aren’t turning activism into election wins

Trevor Williams keeps dealing as Nationals shut down Mariners again

In a throwback loss to the Mariners, the Nats get burned by the bullpen

Nationals loosen up and ride MacKenzie Gore to a win over the Mariners

AI will transform sports betting. It will also increase the risks.

Here’s who The Post endorses in D.C. Council primary elections

How (not) to fix the border

Carolyn Hax: Parents want nothing to do with their daughter’s cheating husband

Miss Manners: Should graduate send parents a thank-you note?

Ask Amy: I want to be busy in my retirement. My husband resents that.

12 injured in severe turbulence on Qatar Airways flight

Claudia Sheinbaum is likely to be Mexico’s next president. Who is she?

U.S. lawmakers ignore China’s warning, meet with Taiwan’s new leader

Want to find hidden gem restaurants? Follow the business crowd to lunch. 

American Airlines fires lawyers after blaming child for being filmed in bathroom

Budget airlines are dropping notorious fees. What changed?

 How Florida is getting its pink back

What you need to know about covid this summer

Trump booed at Libertarian convention

Trump

Health

Well+Being

Opinions

https://www.washingtonpost.com/coronavirus/

Coronavirus pandemic

Healthy living, including food, fitness, longevity and mental health

See more coverage in your recommendations

See alerts for Health and Wellness developments

Health & wellness

Tips on living better delivered every Thursday

Well+Being newsletter

Health alerts

Health & Science alerts

Even under ordinary circumstances, working from home can be rife with challenges. Distractions and interruptions abound, structure is elusive, and time seems to just slip away. The <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/coronavirus/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">coronavirus</a> pandemic has heaped on additional stressors: shared and inadequate spaces and equipment, home-schooling requirements and concerns about finances, food, health and safety.

For the millions of people expected to work from home at this time, finding flow — the optimal state of consciousness in which we feel and perform our best — can seem impossible. So we asked some specialists for advice.

<a href="https://biancajonesmarlin.com/" target="_blank">Bianca Jones Marlin</a> is a neuroscientist and postdoctoral researcher at Columbia University’s Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute. <a href="https://www.stevenkotler.com/" target="_blank">Steven Kotler</a> is co-founder and executive director of research at the Flow Research Collective, which provides training to organizations such as Google and Navy SEALs. <a href="https://jimkwik.com/" target="_blank">Jim Kwik</a>, founder of Kwik Learning, overcame a brain injury as a child and offers brain-performance programs for individuals and Fortune 500 companies.

Here are some of their tips for training the brain to work from home. Given your circumstances, certain suggestions may seem out of reach right now. But even practicing just one or two of these habits could help you move in the right direction.

While <a href="https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/releases/tidy-desk-or-messy-desk-each-has-its-benefits.html" target="_blank">some studies</a> have shown that haphazard surroundings can provide creative stimuli, all three specialists say that keeping your desk or workspace tidy may help eliminate distractions. “Your brain thrives in a clean environment,” Kwik says. Trying to keep track of everything in a messy workspace may consume neurological energy.

 Given that many people working from home might not have an ideal office setup, Marlin says simply clearing off your desk — which might currently be the kitchen table — and moving anything unrelated to the task out of your line of sight can make a difference. Fewer distractions can lead to less time spent on refocusing.

To access flow, you need to keep distractions to a minimum, which can be difficult with  more people spending more time at home. Each week or each evening, have a discussion with others in your household (those who are old enough to understand, at least) about scheduling time to work. Make the most of whatever uninterrupted blocks of time you get: Turn off all notifications and close applications unrelated to the task.

Marlin says that from a neurobiology standpoint, “internal state dictates behavior.” For example, if we’re hungry, thirsty or anxious, those needs will pull attention from the task at hand. So to access flow, she says, “you need to set the internal state for success” by addressing those things before you sit down to work. Not only will staying hydrated help you maintain focus, but research shows it will boost your <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4207053/" target="_blank">cognitive performance</a>.

Chronic stress can also hinder your ability to reach a flow state. “We are most effective when we are calm, nonreactive and open to experiences,” Kotler says. But it’s understandable if you’re not feeling exceptionally relaxed while working from home during a pandemic.

[Taking care of yourself during the pandemic, from head to toe]

Kwik and Kotler both suggest guiding your brain in a positive direction with a gratitude practice, a meditation or mindfulness practice, and exercise. “Gratitude will calm your nervous system down, which will help you pay attention to the task at hand, which will then drive flow and performance,” Kotler says. “And that gives you more to be grateful for, so you are creating a feedback loop.” These practices need not take up much time. Kotler advises three to five minutes for gratitude, 11 to 22 minutes of mindfulness/meditation, or 20 to 40 minutes of exercise daily.

Kwik advises not looking at your phone for the first half-hour of the day. “When you wake up, you're in a relaxed state of awareness,” he says. “You're very suggestible. If the first thing you do is touch your phone in that state, you're retraining and rewiring your brain to be distracted, because every ring, ping, ding, like, share or comment is a dopamine flood.” Furthermore, he says, “one bad message, voicemail or email can hijack your whole day.”

 Marlin recommends including rewards. “Having something to look forward to after you've done the work can be a motivating factor,” she says. “It will activate and reactivate the parts of your brain associated with reward so that the connection of doing work may actually be established with being rewarding, so that you may come to the point where the reward itself is doing the work.” 

“We’re designed to focus on one thing at a time,” Kotler says. To tap into flow, you must let the myth of multitasking go, because switching between multiple unrelated tasks causes fatigue and lost time. “We’re flip-flopping,” Marlin says, “and <a href="https://www.ics.uci.edu/~gmark/chi08-mark.pdf" target="_blank">research has shown</a> it takes a period of time to go back and refocus.”

Avoid getting stuck in a gray zone where work and other things like family time are overlapping. Do what you can to delineate between work and other things as much as possible, and then go all-in on each respectively.

Marlin understands that this is difficult for many people, particularly right now. As a neuroscientist, researcher, wife, and mother of a 3-year old and a newborn she, too, has to be very intentional about where she places her focus. “If I’m at work, I really can’t focus on whether I’m being a great mom or wife. And when I’m focusing on my family and home, I shut off the email and science components of my life,” she says. “When I try to split that in real time — like watching the kids while sending an email, it’s never optimized.”

Kotler suggests spending a few minutes each evening writing out clear goals for the next day, with the most important and challenging task at the top. “Everything [you would do in a day], including things like walking your dog, needs to go on the list, so you can see how many slots you have,” he says. This listmaking practice helps lessen your cognitive load and gives you structure so you don’t waste time in the morning trying to figure out where to start.

“In the beginning, you won't know how many items to put on the list,” Kotler acknowledges. “What you want to do is figure out how many things you can do in a day and still be great at all of them.” With practice, you’ll get a better sense of what you can accomplish and can adjust your list accordingly.

 To activate flow, you need to find the sweet spot between challenge and competency — the challenge or task must slightly exceed your skill set so that you don’t become bored (if the challenge is not enough) or overwhelmed (if it’s too much).

But while flow requires pushing beyond your comfort zone, all three specialists caution against taking it too far, particularly with anxiety already high right now. “Short-term stressors have been shown to be motivators,” Marlin says. “Long-term stressors have been shown to increase health risk, increase anxiety, increase things like depression.”

 So, as Kotler says, “you want to stretch but not snap.”  

Blocking time and scheduling breaks are also key, though recommendations on the exact amount of time vary. Kwik is a fan of the <a href="https://francescocirillo.com/pages/pomodoro-technique" target="_blank">Pomodoro Technique</a> — focusing on one task without distractions for 25-to-30-minute increments then taking a five-minute break. “Use the brain break to hydrate, move and breathe,” he says.

Kotler recommends 90 to 120 distraction-free minutes, which <a href="https://medium.com/better-humans/avoid-burnout-and-increase-awareness-using-ultradian-rhythms-5e64158e7e19" target="_blank">some research</a> indicates maximizes flow. It may seem like a large chunk of time, he says, but “you get much more done in flow.” He suggests starting your day with the most challenging task that will produce the biggest win. And if 90 to 120 minutes isn’t feasible, don’t forgo time-blocking altogether; Kotler says to try an hour or 40 minutes to start.

[Losing your motivation to exercise as the pandemic drags on? Here’s how to get it back.]

Marlin says that while one person may do their best work in 20-minute bursts, another may find their flow working in the middle of the night: “We have different rhythms. We have different family dynamics. Figure out what works for you.”

But make sure you build some flexibility into your schedule, she says. “Adaptation is extremely important, because if we have a rigid structure but the world changes, we won't be able to flexibly readdress our work.” 

With the stressors and chaos we are facing inside and outside our homes, making changes can feel impossible. But you don’t have to do everything at once. Start small.

“Ask yourself: What is the tiniest action I could take that will give me progress toward this goal, where I cannot fail?’ Kwik says. “Take small, simple steps. Maybe it's not working out an hour a day; it’s putting on your running shoes. Or spending 10 minutes on reading or meditating. Little by little, a little becomes a lot, because consistency compounds.”

Fitzgerald is a writer and responsible-travel specialist based in Honolulu. Her website is at 
<a href="https://www.thisissunny.com/" target="_blank">
thisissunny.com
</a>

Sunny Fitzgerald is a writer covering travel, sustainability, relationships, health and wellness. Her work appears in National Geographic, BBC, CNN, Glamour and elsewhere.

Sunny Fitzgerald

The Washington Post

How to focus while working from home during a pandemic

virusfocus

iStock

stock

U.S. cases and deaths by state

World map

New CDC guidance

When am I still contagious?

The people who never get covid

Coronavirus

iptc-media/economy_business_and_finance

iptc-media/science_and_technology/natural_science/biology

iptc-media/health/health_treatment

iptc-media/science_and_technology/natural_science/biology/physiology

iptc-media/health/diseases_and_conditions/illness

iptc-media/science_and_technology/social_sciences/philosophy

iptc-media/science_and_technology/natural_science

iptc-media/health/diseases_and_conditions

iptc-media/health

iptc-media/health/health_treatment/therapy

iptc-media/science_and_technology/social_sciences

iptc-media/science_and_technology/research

iptc-media/science_and_technology

iptc-media/science_and_technology/social_sciences/psychology

client-blocklists/Client List: Morgan Stanley KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Amazon KWs - EXCLUDE ALL 

client-blocklists/Client List: Becton Dickinson KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Boeing KWs 2021 - EXCLUDE ALL 

client-blocklists/CLIENT LIST: Nomura KWs 2021 - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Client List: Exxon Mobil  - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/GEICO KWs - INCLUDES ANY_4.26.21

client-blocklists/Client List: Microsoft KWs 2 - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Client List: T. Rowe Price KWs - INCLUDES ANY

advertising/B2_Agriculture/Food Production_legacyaux_PI3

client-blocklists/T. Rowe Price KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/HBO KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Client List: ExxonMobil 03312021 KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Ford/Lincoln KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Bank of America KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

advertising/Flu, Sickness & Virus Content

client-blocklists/WaPo: Combined Disaster Keyword List - INCLUDES ANY

advertising/Coronavirus Content

client-blocklists/Client List: Optum KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Client List: Eli Lily KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Client List: IBM KWs ALTERNATE Watson - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Client List: Purina KWs - INCLUDES ANY

advertising/Qualcomm Custom KW - 5G

advertising/Citrix Mindfulness

advertising/Client Keywords: On Running

client-blocklists/BP KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/ CLIENT LIST: AT&T KWs 2021 - EXCLUDES ALL

advertising/B2_Inspiring Content_legacyaux_UTY

advertising/B2_Positive News_legacyaux_hlt

client-blocklists/Client KWs : FBI

client-blocklists/Client List: KPMG KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Client List: Verizon KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Client List: Novo Nordisk KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Client List: Siemens KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Client List: Cisco KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Client List: Capital Concerts KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Client List: AT&T ALT KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Mercedes KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/FX Excludes All Disney

client-blocklists/Client List: Boeing KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Client List: Inpixon KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Client List: Navy Federal Credit Union NFCU KWs 2 - INCLUDES ANY - 12.23.20

client-blocklists/Client List: Google KWs - INCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Philip Morris KWs - INCLUDES ANY 

client-blocklists/Dupixent neg kws - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Capital One KWs 2 - INCLUDES ANY - 1.4.21

client-blocklists/Bank of America Merrill Lynch KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/CME KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Google PG KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Client List: Office Depot KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Chase KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Client List: ETrade KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

prism://prism.query/site,/lifestyle/wellness&limit=20

Wellness

The Washington Post Wellness section provides coverage and analysis of health, healthcare, nutrition, wellness and fitness news, trends and policy. Post Wellness also includes discussions and blogs about major health issues.

prism://prism.query/site-articles-only,/lifestyle&limit=20

Lifestyle

Washington Post Lifestyle gives you the latest fashion and beauty trends, home d&eacute;cor pointers, food and recipe ideas and reviews, relationship advice, travel ideas, wellness tips and much more.

prism://prism.query/tag,magnet-coronavirus&limit=20

News and updates about the coronavirus pandemic: Cases in the US, death toll, what you need to know about the virus, how to prepare, how to get tested.