Locked Mode: Embracing Constraints for Enhanced Creativity

Do you find yourself struggling to start your book, write concise reports, or cleanly wrap up your blog post? It seems writer’s block can strike at any moment to ruin your creative flow, which can delay your work schedule and pile up your workload. 

Anyone with a communications role knows that returning to your creative writing flow is no easy task. Maybe it feels sensible to answer some emails until your flow returns, or to seek “inspiration” on other sites. However, a study by UC Irvine reports after 20 minutes of interrupted task performance, people reported significantly higher stress, frustration, workload, effort, and pressure. Therefore, these constant diversions of attention continue warping our attention and prolonging writer’s block. 

The antidote? Less is more. By embracing the creative constraints of a Locked Mode philosophy, you can sharpen your focus and write engaging newsletters, witty social media captions, or riveting blog posts that highlight your creative spark. 

The Philosophy of Constraint

Although it may initially seem counterintuitive, constraints are an excellent catalyst for resourceful innovation. Across fields of art, science, business, and research, the constraints of time, budget, materials, and form have led to some of the greatest inventions and works of art. 

For example, the tiny Japanese haiku forces poets to convey profound ideas and imagery in a 5-7-5 syllabus format, while the rise of the tiny home has encouraged the development of modular multi-use furniture. 

The same idea translates well to applying constraints on your attention span. Computer science professor Cal Newport’s book Slow Productivity argues that the demand for high quantity of work leads to lower quality, and that workers must slow down their pace in order to produce excellent creative results. 

One of the greatest obstacles to slowing down to focus are constant digital distractions that derail our attention.  

Clear the Mental Clutter

“It takes our brains a considerable amount of time to achieve full focus on something important. If we keep temporarily diverting our attention to quick distractions, such as checking in on email or chat conversations, or scrolling through social media headlines, we never achieve this focus, but instead exist in a neurological liminal state of conflicted attention targets,” Newport said in an interview.

He proposes setting up “a locked environment” of specific time slots where any “quick checks” of email, texts, or other sites are momentarily forbidden. These can be helpful when you’re brainstorming or needing to finish writing a script under a deadline. 

“The key to avoiding this poison, therefore, is to keep your focus unwavering when working on something hard,” Newport said. “You’ll produce better quality work, you’ll produce it faster, and you’ll do so with less mental fatigue.”

Newport first recommends the principle of “doing fewer things” to embrace the Slow Productivity mindset. His book highlights several iconic writers with dedicated time and workspaces in their home, like Jane Austen, who was relieved of all familial duties apart from preparing breakfast, leaving her with the rest of the day to finish the manuscripts for her novels. 

While you may not be able to escape cooking your meals, is there a way you can cut down on the back-and-forth chatter of emails by dedicating a certain time of day to answering them? Or can you restrict the weekly newsletter to a bi-monthly one? Doing fewer things also encompasses doing less “distracting” activities, like scrolling or browsing.

Creating a Locked Environment

Jane Austen had a dedicated table to write. Newport explains that this system of matching your space to your work functions because “the familiar snares our attention, destabilizing the subtle neuronal dance required to think clearly.” So how can you create a similar locked environment for yourself where we can slow down and truly concentrate on the details?

A locked environment is both mental and physical. First, dedicate a physical space to all your writing work. If you work from home, the couch or dining table may seem most comfortable and convenient, but your mind will begin to mix up work and leisure. Can you dedicate a spare room or carve out the corner of another one to set up a small desk? 

A physical space can help your mind enter the zone of writing. You can tack up your to-do list and latest brainstorm results on a corkboard, or station some of your favorite books within arm’s reach atop an ergonomic desk. 

Prepping a Locked Mind

Now it’s time to mentally prepare. Train your brain to get in the zone and don’t do anything else in this space except write. Eating, texting, calling, and crafting can happen elsewhere. These firm boundaries prepare you to thrive within Newport’s second principle of Slow Productivity: to work at a natural pace.  

“Don’t rush your most important work,” he writes. “Allow it instead to unfold along a sustainable timeline, with variations in intensity, in settings conducive to brilliance.”

It’s impossible to expect yourself to be at that desk eight hours a day or burn the midnight oil trying to write once you get home from another job. Instead, embrace an hour of deep work here and there, with breaks in-between to rest your mind or address other work necessities, but always away from your writing desk. 

You have a set physical space and you’re training your mental capacity to get in the zone, but maintaining distance from distractions is easier said than done. You may find yourself on X during what’s supposed to be a Deep Work session, or answering Instagram threads when you need to answer emails. In fact, more UC Irvine studies show that the mind can only concentrate for 47 seconds on a screen. So how can you actually eliminate distractions? 

Locked Mode with Freedom

When you need to concentrate, the software Freedom allows you to block distracting apps and websites from your laptop, computer, and mobile devices for certain periods of time called active sessions. You can create as many blocklists and repeating sessions as you’d like. 

However, it doesn’t take long to figure out how to work around your active session to access all the attention-derailing sites again. You can edit your timezone, remove devices from your account, end the session early, and remove items from active blocklists. 

That’s where Freedom’s Locked Mode comes in. Locked Mode prevents you from disrupting an active Freedom session by locking you out from the workaround strategies. Locked Mode is a premium feature enabled separately on your Freedom dashboard and on each of your devices. You can find how to enable or disable Locked Mode on the web Dashboard, mobile Settings, and desktop under “Options.”

With Freedom’s Locked Mode, it would be easy to set up a daily blocklist called “Writing Focus,” and block out your messaging apps, email, social media, YouTube, and anything else distracting so you can begin creating high quality work, which is the third principle of Newport’s Slow Philosophy.

Quality, Not Quantity

Newport urges readers to “obsess over the quality of what you produce, even if this means missing opportunities in the short term. Leverage the value of these results to gain more and more freedom in your efforts over the long term.”

Your creative output shouldn’t necessarily become faster with these techniques. In fact, it may become slower; but the quality of your work will rise. With less digital distractions, you can hone in on your craft. 

Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrote the award-winning 100 Years of Solitude in 18 months while his wife took care of the finances. Anthony Bourdain’s first book Kitchen Confidential was 45 years in the making, launching his career as a globetrotting storyteller. Good things take time and focus.

Free Your Mind, and the Rest Will Follow

When you’re struggling to keep up with your writing, just remember Newport’s suggestion to eliminate distractions so you can better adhere to his principles of Slow Productivity: do less, work at a natural pace, and obsess over quality. 

As you try to embrace constraints in your physical and mental space, ensure that you have a specific zone dedicated to write. 

When you need to enter focus mode, Freedom’s Locked Mode can ensure that your digital environment is free from distractions. With these tools at your disposal, writer’s block will be less likely to arrive, and when it does, it shouldn’t take you long to find your creative flow again. 

Read more about Freedom’s Locked Mode here.

Written by Lorena Bally