Do your mornings feel chaotic, unproductive, or exhausting? In this episode of Productivity MD, Dr. Ann Tsung will uncover the habits and routines that could be holding you back from achieving flow and productivity. Discover how to avoid the extremes of overcomplicated morning routines or burnout from excessive work, and instead create a balanced path to growth and focus.
You’ll learn how to start your day in flow within 90 seconds of waking up, recover effectively to stay present, and align your schedule with your natural chronotype for optimal performance. Plus, find out how your eating habits might be derailing your productivity.
Key Points From This Episode:
1. Breaking free from excessive routines or nonstop work that lead to burnout.
2. Building the habit of starting flow immediately after waking up.
3. Recovering from flow cycles without losing momentum or presence.
4. Aligning your schedule with your chronotype (lark, night owl, third bird).
5. Why “flow before food” is essential for sustained focus and success.
6. Using gratitude to shift your mindset and enhance recovery.
7. How to change destructive thought processes and habits for long-term results.
If you’re tired of feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or unproductive, this episode is your guide to regaining control and finding flow.
Resources:
- Flow in Research Collective by Steve Kotler
Listen to the previous episodes here
LISTEN HERE
00:05 Dr. Ann Tsung Are you struggling to advance your career and sacrificing time with your loved ones because of endless to-dos, low energy, and just not enough time in the day? If so, then this podcast is for you. I am your host Dr. Ann Tsung, an ER critical care and space doctor, a peak performance coach, a real estate investor, and a mother of a toddler. I am here to guide you on mastering your mind and give you the essential skills to achieve peak performance. Welcome to Productivity MD, where you can learn to master your time and achieve the five freedoms in life.
00:51 Hello. Welcome to Productivity MD, and I am your show host Dr. Ann Tsung. Today we’re going to be doing a flow series on how to get into flow states easier and how to sustain it. But today what we’re going to be talking about is, number one, some habits of waking up and getting to flow right away, figuring out and having the reboot routine, figuring out your prototype. And also, we’ll be discussing chrononutrition. With the end goal is to essentially sustain the number of flow cycles you can have throughout the day, so you can get what you need to do faster, in a shorter period of time, and 10x your productivity in the day. So let’s go ahead and dive in.
01:33 A lot of us have a morning routine of some sort. We wake up, we start getting ready, et cetera. Some people may have an excessive morning routine where we journal, meditate, et cetera, work out and then, later on, we dive into work. Then there’s the other extreme, the billionaire, where, let’s say a billionaire example, they just dive into work, work all day, and there’s no recovery whatsoever. No yoga, no working out, lifting weights, no walks, no cold showers, et cetera. So those are really two extremes that we want to avoid. We want to be in the middle ground where we can get up, get into flow states. Then we also have what they call reboot routine. I want to attribute a lot of things I will be teaching as well is from the Flow Research Collective by Steve Kotler and Rian Doris, the CEO. They’ve written a lot of books on flow research. And through this performance neuroscience coaching certification I have, this is everything that I’ve learned and I’m just sharing it with you guys, okay? So the habit that you would like to build is that, you want to wake up and flow. The reason for that is that, right when you wake up from sleep, you’re kind of like in delta, theta wave status, lower state, right? Then your flow state, time is as pure so you don’t stop thinking about self. No negative self talk. You’re just in the zone in working on whatever, deep work, right? Writing something and drafting something, a chapter, creating a slide show, doing some research, like reading and analyzing books or research articles, et cetera, whatever you have, coding. And so in that zone, your brain waves are alpha and theta waves. So if you wake up, within 90 seconds, you literally wake up, urinate, do whatever you need to do, sit down the computer or your desk and get ready to work, you will get into flow state way faster versus if you did all of your other routine, your typical routine, getting ready, et cetera first when you’re fully awake. Then it takes a little longer time for you to get back into flow state. Alright? So what that means is that the night before, you will have a power down or shutdown routine. You will have your assets ready to go, open up, ready to go. Whatever you need the next morning, you would have planned already. Priority 1, 2, 3. But you would have taken the first micro step that you needed for priority one so that you can wake up and just dive right in within 90 seconds of waking up optimally, right? Maybe like five minutes is okay. But you essentially want to stay in that half-asleep state almost. You get in the zone, and then you go just enter into flow easier. So I’ve tried this, where I’ve woken up and just gotten into flow. Like, sat down the desk, urinated, cold shower just because I want to get that over with two minutes, and then sat down the desk ready to go, and I could do multiple flow cycles throughout the day like this. I would actually get ready, put on my makeup. Then the kids are awake, et cetera after that. So that’s kind of like my reboot routine or recovery routine in a way.
04:42 So let’s talk a little bit about the reboot routine or recovery routine, whatever you will need. So after a flow cycle, typically 90 minutes to 120 minutes, you do need some sort of recovery. It’s part of the flow cycle, right? So you want something that has two components. One is mindfulness and then one is activating your parasympathetic system to eat, rest, digest system so that you can get back into flow state. Flow, break, flow, break. You can get back to the flow state easier, right? Because if you’re just trying to work throughout the day, you will burn out eventually. And so this could look like different things for everyone. What’s recommended is, if possible, something for mindfulness. Because if you can be more in the present moment, you are going to be less distracted, right? If you can feel your body sensation, like interoception as well, you kind of know what you need. You feel like more grounded. Also, when you are mindful, it decreases your default mode network, the internal chatter that’s going on. So you want to have some sort of mindfulness practice, some sort of quick — it can be like breath work, deep breathing, two more breathing, like Wim Hof. I combine it. Because, again, if you do it serially, it’s going to take a long time.
06:01 So what I do is, number one, there’s a few components that’s recommended: a cold shower, some sort of mindfulness, foam rolling or yoga — that’s kind of like a parasympathetic system activation, like a little bit more relaxing. Same thing with the breathing — and then some gratitude practice. Right? So I combine it, because I don’t have a lot of time when the kids wake up at seven. So after my first flow block, I would breathe. I would quick inhale, exhale as slow as possible. If I have time, 30 breaths. Then I will hold at the end of the exhale. You want to do three sets. Sometimes I can’t. I don’t have time to do it, you know, three sets in a row. But sometimes I would do, like, at 7:30 when I’m holding the baby and rocking the baby to sleep, I would do my breathing. I would feel myself calming down, and the baby will calm down and go to bed, my nine-month-old right now. So you can put these in throughout your day. Anyway, so I would foam roll, expose my eyes to the sun outside, do my breathing and think about my gratitude, like things I’m grateful for, three things I’m grateful for at the same time when I’m really in a crunch. So it doesn’t have to take long, this reboot routine, if you make it to 5 minutes, 20 minutes, an hour. The point is that you want to wake up first, get into flow, finish your first flow block on deep work, high-priority, goal-directed work. Then you go into the rest of your morning routine to recover, right?
07:29 The next thing I wanted to talk about is what’s called your chronotype. There’s three chronotypes, right? There’s a lark, there’s a night owl, and there’s a third bird. A lark, typically, is kind of the morning type, in the morning type. Night owl is a night owl. Third bird, it’s like majority of the people. Usually, it’s kind of in the middle where they wake up around 8 AM. The early bird, maybe they like to wake up around 6. Then the late owl or the night owl is maybe like 10 AM. So right now, you want to figure out your chronotype right now so that you can align with this, so you can schedule your flow block, drawing the peak chronotype zone for your peak productivity. When you’d have no work, no obligations, just remember that time where you could just do whatever you wanted, went to go to sleep where you want to, wake up whenever you want to naturally, with no caffeine, not staying up because of caffeine. Think about what time you naturally go to bed and what time you would naturally want to wake up. And then if you take that midpoint section, the middle sleep period, say, you could go to bed at 10 PM and then you would like to wake up at 6 AM, so your midpoint section is 2 AM, right? So anytime your midpoint is before 3:30 AM, you’re a lark. Then anytime your midpoint section is after 5:30 AM, then you’re a night owl. And everybody else in between, you’re a third bird.
08:57 So what that means is that, now that you have determined your chronotype, then you have a chronotype zone. Right? You can get as much done in one hour when you’re in your chronotype zone, the same productivity, right? But if you’re in your trough, not in your chronotype zone, in your low-energy state, and you’re trying to work, it’ll take you four hours. So once you figure that out, your chronotime zone, typically, if you’re a lark where your peak productivity, where you’re just getting to flow easier, where you have your peak cortisol, peak serotonin, you have energy, and then you have relaxation as well, and you’re in alpha and theta state easier. So if you’re a lark, like early morning, typically, 6 to 9 AM is your chronotype zone. If you are a third bird, typically, 8 to 11 AM is your peak chronotype zone. And then if you are a night owl, typically, it’s 4 PM and after, right? So maybe till about like 8, maybe sometimes like 9 or so. And so what you want to do, now that you know where your chronotype zone is, you want to list out everything that you’re doing that’s high leverage, goal-directed work, and then match it so that it aligns into that chronotype zone, so you can bust out your productivity, 10x it, 20x it, maybe even like 20x it. Who knows? If what research is saying that it takes you 25% of the time to complete something in your chronotype zone, then just imagine if you schedule everything that requires planning, coding, researching, studying, reading, drafting, creating. If you can get that all into that zone, just imagine how much more you can get done throughout the day, right? So you don’t have to waste time at night. If you’re a lark and you’re wasting time at night after the kids go to bed, you’re trying to do something, it’s way slower. So all the menial tasks like errands, perhaps maybe some meetings, things that don’t really advance your goals, they should be in the trough, the low zone. Right? The trough. After your peak, then there’s the trough.
11:01 So a lot of us are actually working, trying to work, be productive in the trough where we, at the end of the day or in the afternoon — unless you’re a night owl, of course — when we have a lot of attention residue, when we have more cognitive load, then we’re trying to do deep creative work. And so it’s just taking us way longer. So look at all the lists of menial tasks, things that don’t move the goal, move them out. Move them into the trough. And all the high-leverage items into the chronotype zone right now. And also, with the meetings that you’re scheduling, every meeting that you take on, you want to essentially master, like change your habit. Change your thought process regarding this meeting. It’s not like, “Do I have time for it?” It’s more like, “Do I have the energy for it?” Or, “Should I put this in my chronotype zone? Is it like a deep working meeting, or is it a meeting that’s like FYI type for your situational awareness?” Sometimes, of course, we don’t have a choice and we have to adjust. But if there is a choice in scheduling meetings, if it could go into the trough, if it’s not a high-stake meeting, then move it to the trough period of your day. Right?
12:14 Okay. So we talked about the chronotypes, selecting what your chronotype is, by figuring out your natural sleep wake cycle. Then we figured out your peak chronotype period. You have moved all of your high-leverage, goal-directed actions into those chronotype period. You moved all the things that don’t really matter, that are not urgent, not important items, or maybe even urgent but not very important items, into the trough. And now I want to talk about chrononutrition. There’s a difference between ritual meals versus flow meals. What you eat will be able to determine to either block your flow or improve your flow, extend your flow. Right? And so that is the definition of chrononutrition. You are eating, and the timing of your eating, everything is essentially to maximize the length and duration of flow states, to maximize productivity. Then when I’m talking about productivity, again, this is not all just work. It depends on your why. It could be about something else too. Like sometimes I want to spend time with my kids. I want to be in flow with my kids, too. I want to be in flow with my husband. I have eaten foods that happen me to sleep. And I didn’t have the energy to actually play with them, to hang out with them, to be present with them because I was so tired. So again, when I’m talking about productivity, it’s not just work related, okay?
13:39 So Chrononutrition. There’s three different pillars, essentially, to it, right? The more food you eat, potentially, your flow could be blocked. So one of them is fasting. Potentially, if you can do time-restricted eating, having a shorter period of eating window, that would be fantastic. If you can fast during your flow, like flow before food. If you can fast during your flow blocks, your peak period or your chronotype zone, then that would be fantastic. So you’re not thinking about food. Your food is more automated down the line. If you fast long enough, you’re not even hungry. So if you can flow before food, that is really number one. Then what you want to determine too, what you eat, that’s going to advance or block your flow. The types of food, right? Typically, it’s whole foods, not very processed, minimal sugar. Because once you spike your insulin with a lot of carbohydrates, a lot of sugar, chemicals, et cetera, then your sugar will drop because of the elevated insulin. And once your sugar drops, then your energy level will plummet. I know this from my own continuous glucose monitoring, the Dexcom I’ve had for a few years. I know exactly what types of food will bring down my energy. I know exactly what types of food will I have a low glycemic index and will allow me to have a sustained energy. So think about, if you don’t have a CGM or continuous glucose monitor, consider getting one. Talk to your primary physician. It’s amazing, because you have hard data, right? But if you don’t, then you can consider doing some sort of elimination diet and then slowly introducing it and figuring out what types of food brought my energy, what types of food have increased my energy and just do more of that. But usually, it is less carbs, less sugar, less-processed food, and you reserve that towards the end of the day. When I talk about flow meals versus ritual meals, we don’t necessarily have to stick to a routine of breakfast, lunch, dinner. Those are ritual meals. And so, a lot of times, the difference between flow meals is that your nutrition, what you eat, is actually timed and the content is optimized for flow. Ritual meals is like hanging out, socializing with friends or kids, et cetera. You’re kind of eating maybe more carb heavy. So you could determine if you want to have one ritual meal a day or one ritual meal during the weekends only. Then the rest of the weekdays during work. it’s just all flow meals.
16:06 Also, another thing you can do is fast, just doing one meal a day. One meal a day. You can extend your flow blocks by doing just one meal a day at dinner. Then you eat all the calories that you need for that one day. Regarding the timing of these flow meals, if you can fast, I think that would be best. Because I fast during the day, during the big morning block. With breastfeeding, I don’t have a very long fasting window. It could be like 16, 18 hours. But now it’s maybe like 10 to 12-hour fasting window. Maybe sometimes 14. But I have my Bulletproof matcha in the morning, and then I go into flow. Then you want to eat your flow meal, kind of like when you’re — there’s two options — in your peak state, in your peak zone, current time zone. Then hopefully, that peak state can kind of sustain throughout the rest of the day. Because a lot of times, we have an energy drop at 3 PM. You can also time your flow meal just right before that trough, if it is 3 PM, kind of like 2, 2:30 so that you don’t have that dip at energy. And so you may have to test your timing, test the types of food. But I think this is super important. Because what you eat will actually determine how many mistakes you make, or how much money you’re losing because you’re not productive, or just your performance at work in general. So think about the stuff that you’re putting in your body. It’s not just really for health but, actually, it’s for financial reasons too, if that’s what motivates you. I know when I work at ER-ship, if you’re RVU-based, based on how many patients you see or procedure, if I feel crappy like have food coma, then I definitely cannot move as fast. And if I make mistakes, then that will impact patient care, right? So there’s a lot of high stakes for me to actually eat, so I have sustained energy. I see that a lot of the nightshift workers, so much processed food, so many cookies in the ER, donuts, whatever. It doesn’t really lead to productivity.
18:11 Anyway, we have covered quite a bit in a short period of time, so I want to summarize again. Number one habit to build is, right now on your calendar, pick a time that you are going to wake up and begin flow and say: Flow before food and not eat, if possible. Pick a time. Have a set flow time of an hour, maybe an hour and a half or two hours. Then you schedule on your calendar a reboot routine — maybe 20 minutes. It could be 10 minutes — so that you can take advantage of your chronotype zone and actually get into flow states easier. Number two, we talked about the chronotypes. Number three, we talked about your chronotype zone and chrononutrition, picking and selecting the types of food, and timing your food so that you can extend your flow state, extend your productivity. And if you can fast, that would really be best. When we talk about time-restricted eating, maybe fasting has a negative connotation. It’s more like having eating period window that you’re going to stick to. Also, if you can stop eating, if you want to pick your window, if you can stop eating at least three, optimally, four hours before you go to bed, you might find that you can extend your deep sleep longer. I used to do two, three hours before bed, I would stop eating. I moved it to about three to four hours before bed, and I saw my deep sleep increased in duration by 30 minutes. So it used to be an hour and a half, an hour and 20 minutes. Now it’s close to two hours of deep sleep if I can stop eating three to four hours before bed. Just think about that. Take some action. If there’s one action right now you can take, what is it? Because there’s no point in listening to this, right? And if you don’t take action, then there’s really no point. Then I want you to take one micro step after this. And so try things out and see how it goes, alright? Reach out to me. This episode is going to be at Productivity MD. All the resources I’ve talked about will be in the show notes. Of course, reach out to me. You can find me on Instagram @AnnTsungMD or Facebook. And if you guys are interested, if this speaks to you, you want to increase your productivity, then go on productivityMD.com. You can book a one-on-one coaching qualification call with me just to see if you’re the right fit for this one-year one-on-one coaching, so you can actually supercharge your productivity. Anyway, so thank you again for your kind presence and attention. And just remember that everything we need is within us now. Thank you.
20:47 Disclaimer: This content is for general information purposes only and does not constitute the practice of medicine. No doctor or patient relationship is formed. The use of this information linked to this content is at the user’s own risk. The content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Users should not disregard or delay in obtaining medical advice for any medical conditions they may have and should seek the assistance of their healthcare professionals for any such conditions. The views are personal views only and do not represent any university or government institution.