Localization is a complex process that depends on excellent teamwork, clear goals, and well-organized workflows. However, it’s challenging to do focus work when your workspace is digital. Google is one click away, and you can get lost any minute into a rabbit hole of web surfing for hours. 🙇 So, how can you help your team focus and avoid procrastination?
If you want to create better conditions that lead to productive localization teams, and more work getting done, you’ll want to have a look at flow states. Flow states are nothing but those time periods when you feel like time has stopped, and nothing else exists but your focus and the task at hand. You might know this as “being in the zone”.
In this article, we’ll have a look at flow states and how they can lead digital localization teams to accomplish more during their working hours.
🧘♀️ The Flow State: Your Secret Weapon 🔗
The flow state was coined by the famous psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. After he went through the terrors of living in a prison during World War II, and then witnessing a speech by Carl Jung in a random manner, he became interested in human happiness, creativity, and psychology. He spent years researching in order to explain what was behind exceptional creative work and hyperfocus.
One of the answers was the concept of flow state, which is described as a state where you are immersed in an activity to the point you’ve completely lost track of time. This is a highly productive state that not only makes one immensely happy, but it’s also a point when creativity can reach its peaks. 🎨 And it’s not confined to a particular activity.
Since localization involves intricate tasks, such as content extraction, translation, quality assurance, and adaptation to cultural nuances, we can agree that it’s an activity that requires high focus and concentration.
Flow is a state where you are immersed in an activity to the point you've completely lost track of time. This is the point where creativity peaks - and it's not confined to a particular type of project
Digital product teams often face tight deadlines, have to juggle multiple projects at once, and need to coordinate among themselves. In such an environment, reaching the flow state becomes vital for excellent localization - and productive workdays.
When teams are in the flow state, they reach new levels of creativity, problem-solving, and laser-like focus. This hyperfocus allows team members to dedicate all their energy to the localization process, leading to a deeper understanding of the content, its context, and the cultural sensitivities connected with it.
As a result, the translated content resonates more authentically with the target audience, contributing to stronger communities and greater user satisfaction.
🎧 How Can Localization Teams Reach Flow States? 🔗
Flow states are tricky. We are wired to achieve flow states naturally when the conditions are met, but we cannot force them. But for as long as we do what’s under our control, creating the appropriate conditions, we should be able to bring them about.
Flow states can help your team get more projects done in a shorter amount of time. 💡 To induce these states isn’t easy, but it’s not impossible either. You have to provide the digital (and perhaps physical) environment to make this possible. Also, you should design workflows free of obstacles, delays, and missing resources. Here are a few of the conditions that lead to flow states, and how you can create them:
Set clear goals and provide feedback 🔗
There’s no scenario where clarity isn’t beneficial. 💭 But in the case of flow states, clarity is crucial. If you’re in charge of the goal-setting for your team, try to make them as clear as possible. Clear goals and constructive feedback reduce the confusion that prevents your team members from entering flow states.
You should define specific, achievable objectives for each localization project. Having a clear vision of the desired outcome enables team members to channel their efforts effectively. Constructive feedback on their progress keeps them engaged and motivated, driving them into flow states.
Here’s how to actually achieve this:
- 📝 Lay down the long-term goals and chunk them into reasonable short-term goals.
- 🗓️ Discuss the timeframes with your team to make sure they’re realistic.
- ⏰ Reward teammates who deliver on time, or even earlier.
Next, when providing feedback, keep this simple rule in mind: before critiquing, make sure you compliment the positive aspects of the work done. This way, they will feel appreciated for their effort and will be motivated to reflect on your comments.
Consider difficulty for task distribution 🔗
An easy task makes work feel boring, but a difficult one makes you feel stuck. So, your goal should be to distribute work that is somewhere in the middle. Not too challenging nor too easy, but somewhere in between. That’s how you stimulate flow states.
The flow state occurs when there is a perfect balance between challenge and skill level. You should assign localization tasks that align with the expertise and capabilities of your team members. When your colleagues work on tasks that have the right level of challenge, they remain more focused.
To find what tasks to distribute to whom while increasing the chances for flow states to occur while they work on them, keep in mind these pointers:
- 🔎 Discover what project/task each team member prefers to work on.
- 🏄♀️ Ask them about their most productive timeframes and adjust deadlines to allow them to work during that time.
- 🛌 Make sure your team isn’t overloaded and has time for breaks and recovery.
Create a distraction-free environment 🔗
The flow state requires uninterrupted focus. Creating a distraction-free environment is a must to dive into a focused state. If you’re working in-office, then make sure your teams have clear workspaces with minimal interruptions and block time for specific tasks.
One way to ensure team members don’t interrupt each other is by using physical signs. 🚷 It sounds funny, but I actually came around this idea in the book Indistractable by Nir Eyal. You can put a piece of paper atop your desk that says you’re doing focused work and don’t want to be interrupted. Sounds foolish, but it gets the job done.
Link work to your teammates' passion 🔗
Intrinsic motivation can be more powerful than external motivation which comes from bonuses or rewards. That’s why discussing how the task at hand contributes to your team’s life mission, vision, personal values, and self-development can encourage them to focus more intensely. Perhaps not everyone is crazily passionate about what they’re doing, but in one way or another, it relates to their life goals.
Passion for the task at hand and a sense of purpose in the localization process can get team members into the flow state. Clarifying the importance and the impact of the localization process can help spark a sense of purpose and intrinsic motivation.
Choosing a localization platform that aids in all your localization scenarios is key to increasing the chances of flow states happening in your localization workflows. That’s because your team can manage and translate any type of content within one platform.
At Localazy, we offer multiple solutions that cover all of your needs, including:
- 🛍️ Shopify translation
- 📐 Design localization
- 👩💻 Website translation
- ✍️ Content localization
- 💻 Software localization
- 📲 Product feeds’ translation
Explore our offer of integrations, and learn more on how to get started with Localazy here.
🌊 The Ripple Effect of Flow States in Localization 🔗
When digital product teams achieve the flow state in localization, a positive ripple effect is felt throughout the entire organization. Flow enhances team collaboration, communication, and trustworthiness, as team members work together to achieve shared goals. Moreover, the quality and efficiency of the localization process improve significantly, leading to faster time-to-market and reduced localization costs. ⛹️♀️
As the flow state becomes a regular occurrence in localization efforts, the overall productivity of your teams reaches new levels. They will have more time and willingness to take on new challenges, explore innovative approaches, and expand their localization efforts to reach other new markets worldwide.
The right platform can do wonders. Our clients vouch for this. We’ve helped hundreds of brands like ROUVY (a global AR cycling platform) expand worldwide and connect with users in their native languages. ROUVY uses professional and crowdsourced translations in Localazy to deliver a localized augmented-reality cycling experience to worldwide customers with the help of Localazy CDN.
💬 Final Thoughts 🔗
Achieving a satisfactory level of productivity during localization is challenging in this age where distractions are abundant and looming in every direction. 🤹♂️ But flow states can help you will into existence those sprints of creativity bursts and periods of productivity if you create the conditions for them to happen. The physical and digital workspaces you choose have a huge impact on these conditions.
If your current localization workflows are spread across spreadsheets, emails, and text messages, you might want to look at Localazy as your TMS to unify everything into one place.
