I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the relationship between doing deep, focused work and recovering from it properly. On the surface they seem like opposites. Work hard, then rest. Simple enough. But the more I dig into it, the more I think they’re actually part of the same loop, and getting either one wrong breaks the whole thing.
This has become more important in the age of AI driven development. AI fatigure is real, Siddhant Khare covered it on his blog. We are more productive than ever, shipping faster than ever, yet getting more exhausted. I’m certainly feeling it, I’m sure many of you reading are as well.
The Flow Cycle
Flow is something I’ve been interested in for a long time. Not just the state itself, that feeling of being completely locked in where hours pass and you barely notice, but the actual cycle that surrounds it.
What I’ve come to realise is that flow doesn’t just happen. You can’t sit down, open your laptop and will yourself into it. There’s a process. First, you have to struggle. You need to be working on something that sits right at the edge of your ability. Just frustrating enough that your brain is fully engaged, but not so far beyond you that you shut down completely. That tension is the entry point.
Then comes the release. You step away. Go for a walk, make a coffee, do something completely unrelated. This is where I think a lot of people (myself included) get it wrong. The release feels like giving up, like you’re losing momentum. But that discomfort of stepping away is actually part of the process. Your brain needs that space to work through the problem without you consciously forcing it.
After the release, you deploy whatever triggers help you drop back into focus. Then you’re back in it. And then the part that genuinely surprised me when I started paying attention to it: recovery. Proper, intentional recovery.
This cycle is well studied, Steven Kotler has wrote some fantastic books on the topic. In our current AI driven workflows, you could argue the struggle never happens and you never stop because the “just one more prompt” effect is real.
Recovery Isn’t Passive
Here’s the thing I keep coming back to. Recovery sounds easy. It sounds like doing nothing. But in practice, it’s probably the hardest part of the whole cycle to actually commit to.
When you could just write one more prompt, vibe one more feature, it’s very tricky.
I have a restorative yoga practice I try to do as part of my daily shutdown. It’s maybe 20 minutes. Nothing dramatic. But the number of times I’ve let it slip because I worked late, or because I told myself I’d just finish this one thing first, is embarrassing. And those are exactly the days I need it most.
It’s counterintuitive, but recovery actually requires grit. It requires the same commitment as the work itself. When things get hard, when the day runs over, when you’re tired and just want to sit on the sofa, the recovery protocols are the first things to go. But they’re the things that make the next day’s deep work possible.
If you skip recovery consistently, you’re not just tired. You’re slowly degrading your ability to get into flow at all. The cycle breaks.
Deep Work Is the Point
Underneath all of this is a question I keep asking myself. What am I actually trying to focus on?
For me it comes down to a few things. Refining my craft, which means writing code, writing articles, producing content. Constant learning, reading a lot, actively trying to challenge my own views rather than just reinforcing them. Sharing intentionally. And being genuinely present during the things that matter.
None of those are things I can do whilst half-distracted. You can’t refine a craft while checking Slack every ten minutes. You can’t really learn something deeply if you’re skimming it between meetings. You can’t be a productive meeting participant if you’re vibing with Claude on the side. These things demand focus, and focus is a finite resource that needs protecting.
I’ll be the first to admit I’m guilt of all these things.
My normal working day is full of interruptions. That’s just the reality of working in a team, in a company, with other humans who need things from me. So the deep work, the stuff that actually moves the needle on my own growth, has to happen outside of that. Early mornings, evenings, weekends. Time I carve out specifically because it’s mine to control.
The question I try to keep asking is: is this the most important thing I could be doing right now? It’s a simple filter but it’s ruthless when you actually apply it honestly.
The Loop
What I’ve ended up with is something like this. Deep, focused work requires flow. Flow requires struggle, release and the right triggers. And the whole thing is only sustainable with genuine recovery. Not passive, accidental recovery. Intentional, committed, even-when-you-don’t-want-to recovery.
Grit isn’t just about pushing harder. Sometimes it’s about having the discipline to stop, to rest, to do the 20 minutes of yoga even though you’re tired and it’s late and you just want to be done with the day.
The cycle only works if you respect every part of it.