In the zone

It was a good morning of work. I was crossing To Do items off my list left and right; I was coming up with story leads and tracking them down; I was getting answers from editors. A conference call for which I’d blocked off an hour wrapped up in 15 minutes, with everyone on it agreeing to take on an apparently equal amount of follow-up work. I finished one article, started another, pitched two more. (That’s not being manic; it’s how freelance journalists need to work to maintain a steady flow of revenue.) I called my doctor’s office to ask about scheduling a flu shot, and that wasn’t even something I’d remembered to put on my To Do list. In fact, after I did it, I added it to my To Do list just for the fun of checking it off.

When I looked at the clock on the lower right corner of my computer screen, I discovered I’d been sitting at my desk for less than two hours; it was barely 11:00. With the dog’s deep brown eyes fixed soulfully on me, I promised her we’d get out for a run before noon.

I’m in the zone today with my work, I thought to myself as I headed out.

Being in the zone when working isn’t necessarily about maximum productivity. The times I’ve probably gotten the most work done, in any meaningful way of measuring, is on nights when I’ve stayed up until midnight to meet a deadline and written a couple of thousand-word articles within the space of three or four hours. This wasn’t about getting a huge amount of work done. Being in the zone felt more like equilibrium than voracious speed. I was in balance. I was writing, but I was also networking, responding, liaising, and even taking care of personal and family tasks like scheduling flu shots and starting a load of laundry.

I know this feeling, I thought. It’s like running. It’s like running in the zone, when you’re out on a three-miler or a six-miler or any distance at all and everything feels right. And just as working in the zone isn’t about voracious productivity, running in the zone isn’t necessarily about speed. I’ve had faster runs, especially in road races or when Tim is impatiently urging me along, that didn’t feel nearly as good as some in which everything was simply in balance. When running, being in the zone means I’m dressed right for the temperature, I’m neither hungry nor full, I’m listening to something engaging on my iPod. It means I pass a neighbor or two to wave to along the way, and there’s plenty of daylight left, and I’m not in any rush to get back. Running in the zone happens when my legs feel strong and my breathing is steady and all of it – inside and out, the universe and my biorhythms – all feel as perfectly balanced as a newly inspected postal scale.

The zone is a great place to be, whether you’re working in it, running in it, parenting in it (you know, those days when everyone is happy and getting along, and you manage to make a nutritious lunch that everyone likes). Cooking. Visiting. Hiking. Partying. Meditating. No matter what the activity, there are times when the karma is right and everything feels in tune.

That’s the zone. It’s hard to seek out, harder to attain when you actively seek it. But on days like today, it’s just there waiting for you, open-armed and welcoming.