Entering the flow state through iteration

They say humans are born with two innate fears 1) The fear of heights (or falling) and 2) The fear of loud noises. Well, I believe creatives are born with a 3rd - the fear of a blank canvas.

In Steven Pressfield's book 'The War of Art', he discusses a type of resistance that almost all people encounter when sitting down to complete a task and faced with a blank page. Whether it be painter hoping to leave a lifelong legacy, or an accountant writing a boring email.

The resistance one faces is often the conflict between the part of you that knows you need to do the work and the part of you that doesn't, for whatever reason. Perhaps it's laziness, perhaps it's fear, who knows. The myriad of reasons for this conflict could form a seperate article.

As a designer, I find myself in this situation all the time. Most often it manifests in staring at a blank Figma file, thinking about what number of columns should be in my grid and what font I should use.

Just the very act of getting started, allows me to get out of my head and start bringing ideas to life, no matter how 'not great' the ideas may be. Several iterations later, things are starting to take shape.

I find my work most enjoyable when I enter the flow state and the most effective way I have found to do this, is to just get started designing something, even if it's crap.