Dr. Travis Bradberry, co-author of the book Emotional Intelligence 2.0, recently published an article “How To Experience Flow and Get Crazy Productive” which contains facts and advice that you may find helpful as a media planner. In media planning, it’s critical to get yourself into the right state of mind before making investment decisions for your media plans. You are spending big advertising budgets and you can’t afford to operate with your judgment impaired by external factors.

According to Dr. Bradberry:

  • The average person has 70,000 thoughts each day, and if you don’t learn to organize them, they have the potential to wreak havoc on your productivity.
  • In a recent study conducted at the National Institute on Aging, it was found that allowing your mind to be disorganized doesn’t just feel bad, it’s also actually bad for you. A disorganized mind leads to high stress, chronic negativity, and impulsivity. These states stifle productivity and contribute to a slew of health problems, including weight gain, heart disease, sleep problems, and migraine headaches.
  • Studies have shown that it takes five to twenty minutes before people start to focus. If you can force yourself to persist in the activity in spite of any distractions for twenty minutes, the chances are much higher that you will be able to sustain your focus and find a state of flow.
  • Research has shown that the most productive work cycle tends to be fifty-two minutes of uninterrupted work, followed by seventeen-minute breaks.

Dr. Bradberry recommends five steps to achieving a state of “flow” which leads to high productivity and a blissful state of balance. For these steps and more information, read his article.

Before taking those five steps, you should have good media planning software in place. This software will help you to avoid the distractions of menial tasks and to stay focused on high value media planning decisions. Otherwise, you’ll be fighting an uphill battle with constant interruptions that prevent you from achieving a highly productive flow state.