Learning to Build and Create Frames is the Ultimate Life Hack
Become aware of your current frames and build new ones!
Improve your quality of life by constructing useful frames. Frames can help you experience more psychological flow!
Here we go!
Frames are super important!
Creating frames allows you to conserve energy while, at the same time, performing better. Frames can help you learn things faster. They make the process of change more efficient. A frame can boost psychological flow. Frames can also help you turn off the parts of your brain you don’t need at that moment (like the overthinking/ overanalyzing part). A properly constructed frame can boost creative thinking. There is probably even more I can add here, but that’s plenty for now.
The prefrontal cortex takes up a lot of energy by thinking and processing all the time. By shutting it off we are preserving our energy for something much better. Flow. Research shows that flow brings along with it up to a 500% improvement in performance. That’s astronomical and quite difficult to even capture mentally. I mean, what is 500% better than what I am currently doing? I have no idea. That’s somewhat difficult to comprehend.
That’s why training flow is so important for everyone. A flow experience will give you a glimpse of what that 500% improvement looks and feels like. Creating frames will help you experience more psychological flow.
Let me give you an example.
Frames are like boxes. Mental and physical boxes. We store different things in each box. In these boxes we also filter information differently. Because each frame comes with its own slightly different set of values and perceptions. Your most important values may not change, but values slightly down the list will reorder themselves into alignment. We just have to shut off the talkative part of our brain to do this. The over-thinking part.
One example of a frame is seen in therapy. As a therapist, I try to help my clients set a frame. I do this in a couple of ways.
I try to see each client at the same time each week.
I try to see each client in the same place each week.
We begin most sessions with mindfulness practice to “step into” that frame.
I try to assist clients to stay in that frame during the session (not getting distracted).
I am trying to create a box. A repeatable, familiar experience for both mind and body.
A second example of a frame is your job. For most people, work is a very repeatable frame. You get to work around the same time each day. You have a pretty good idea of the work you will be doing once you get there. You have a group of familiar people that you work with. Etc.
A frame is a set of boundaries and ground rules.
Frames are like sunglasses that tint our perceptions on everything. Sometimes we are aware of them and sometimes we are not. Increasing our awareness can help us understand how our frames impact our perceptions, and learn to step out of a frame for a more flexible thinking style. To get a different perspective.
Frames are consistent. They provide a basic structure for how we think and feel and act while we are within the frame. But, frames are also flexible. We can change them after we learn new things. Frames can be altered and adapted.
Frames are different for everyone because we all have different experiences. Those experiences tint our glasses in different shades. Someone trying to write a paper for their psychology class will have a different mental experience reading this post than someone who is just scrolling their feed on a Sunday afternoon.
Here is an example of a frame that I have built for myself.
Every Monday morning I have blocked off 90 minutes in my schedule. I created a frame that I call Monday Morning Breakthroughs (MMB for short on my google calendar). I treat this 90 minute time slot as sacred, and I defend it quite strongly. Within these 90 minutes I do a few things consistently each time.
I turn on creative focus boosting music from Brain.FM and set a timer for each of the following steps. That way I don’t have to worry about checking the time.
I begin with a 12 minute walk on the treadmill (or quick walk with the dogs if the weather is nice).
Then 20 minutes of deep body care. I am trying to warm up my body in preparation for the week ahead. Like a pregame warmup in sports (usually muscle pliability training).
Then 10 minutes of yoga to further warm and loosen the body.
During the first 4 steps I have my phone notebook app open to journal the thoughts that come into my head.
I open up a blank page on google docs for some “creative time”.
Finally, to wrap it all up, I journal about my experience from the last 90 minutes.
This is usually when the majority of my blog writing gets done, but it's flexible. Sometimes I think about my clients for the upcoming week. Other times I brainstorm solutions for other struggles in my life. Sometimes I write poems. And, other days I just let my mind wander connecting random thoughts together.
Funny thing about this frame though. I noticed that I stopped dreading getting out of bed on Monday mornings. I had this experience where my mind started churning at about 5 or 6 am. It was like my mind knew what was coming in a few hours later and was gearing up for it. The brain chemistry, the feel good neurochemicals, were already starting to stir. Getting out of bed Monday morning is no longer a drag for me. In fact most Monday’s I find myself wide awake, ready to get going.
I would say that is a 500% improvement from how Monday’s used to feel for me. Even my Sunday’s are more relaxing because I don’t fall into the “Sunday Scaries” or “Sunday Blues” like I used to. I can attribute a lot of that to creating this Monday morning frame. It is a physical and mental frame of time that helps me live better.
What is a frame you can build to help you live better?
Enjoy your day!
