USA 
United Kingdom
Deep work is something that sounds so appealing: calling to mind writers locking themselves away in log cabins, focussing solely on their craft without distraction. But in the IoT age and hyperconnectivity being queen, do we need an app for that? Probably.
Welcome to the second part in our Deep Work Series. If you need a refresher or a crash course into what deep work is, start with the first part in our series. In part two, we’re here to discuss the practical applications of the theory behind deep work and to speak to entrepreneur and tech boss Alicia Navarro. Navarro founded Flown, a deep work platform that allows professionals to connect and work deeply together, in 2019, before remote working was the norm. This prescient business sense is both commendable and, one would imagine, profitable; especially considering how hard it can be for neurodivergent people – particularly those with ADHD – to focus while working at home, solo.
Flown is a platform-as-a-service that engages people all over the world in deep work, connecting them with people they can talk to – and then be silent with – as they focus deeply on a specific task.
In part three of our series, a few of us on the Executive Grapevine team who have ADHD will be trialling Flown for a month to see how it helps our focus and productivity.
But for now, let’s dig into Navarro’s story and see what Flown has to offer employees, HR managers and C-level leaders in terms of deep, meaningful work.
I truly believe that what mindfulness and meditation were for the past decade, deep work and flow states will be for the next decade.
HRGV: Tell us a bit about you and how you got to the stage of founding Flown
Navarro: Sure. I grew up in Australia to Spanish and Cuban parents. We were very poor, but I always knew I wanted to be in tech, and I wanted to be a ‘businesswoman’ – that’s how I thought of my future when I was a child! I studied computer science and I was the first woman to do a computing science degree at my university. I’ve always worked at tech companies, predominantly in product management. I then founded Skimlinks, which began as a sort of Pinterest clone, but failed at that. I then pivoted and pivoted and eventually accidentally landed on what Skimlinks is now – something that is used by almost every major media company in the world [her clients include HuffPost, Hearst and Condé Naste].
After 11 years there, I handed over the reins and took a two-year sabbatical. I then got the itch to be a founder again, and unsurprisingly, the idea I kept coming back to was how hard it was to be able to focus and get work done in the physical spaces such as the office or co-working spaces (which I found awful). Or if I was working from home, I was lonely there were so many distractions. I was on a road trip and I discovered this book about deep work by Cal Newport.
[Here Alicia describes the book and what deep work is, but we’ve covered that in part one, so we’ll cut to the juicy bits of how Flown works and who it can help.]
HRGV: So how does Flown work? What’s it like?
Navarro: The way I like to describe it is that it's like Peloton, which is very successful – yes, they've got a bike, but what really made them a really great brand is that they have this collection of live and on-demand content experiences, led by these very compelling personalities that deliver results alongside a sense of accountability and community. So, my theory was well if that works for exercise, how do we bring that into how we work.
How Flown works is that they have a collection of facilitators or deep work coaches who lead these focus sessions – we call them Flocks – and there are a few different types that we offer. There’s the Morning Take-off, which is like a morning ritual where you meditate and set your goals for the day. All the way up to our deep dives, which is where you basically join and you set your intentions to a smaller group of professionals, then work in silence in the virtual company of people from all over the world and in all sorts of different professions.
HRGV: What is the interface like?
Navarro: Well, we use video because it taps more into the psychological hacks that we're leveraging with this. And there are a couple of things that play here – and this might be interesting for you to research – if you suffer from any attention deficit disorder or issue the technique that is recommended for you is doubling. Doubling, or body doubling, is when a person with ADHD works alongside someone else and because of the accountability, it’s sort of like going to the library to study. It's important that you can see other people while you're working.
And that has this incredible effect on us, so we think, “Ok, I’m with other people that are doing this, I can do this as well.”
[For the avoidance of doubt, CHADD, the leading charity for adults with ADHD, recommends body doubling.]
At the beginning of the session, you engage for a couple of minutes with a small group of people, you set your intentions, but you also share something kind of fun, or you know a little narrative about you. And what that does is provide a moment of human connection for all the users working remotely and who may be lonely – subconsciously or not. These very controlled short moments of human interaction are enough to kind of bring out our humanity. What it also does is it creates that effect that now that you've told someone what you're going to do in these two hours by setting your intentions – you also know that you’re going back to talk to these people at the end of those two hours, and you’re all going to share how much you got done. And that’s a good motivator.
If you suffer from any attention deficit disorder or issue the technique that is recommended for you is doubling.
HRGV: Is Flown a safe and productive space for neurodivergent people or those who don’t feel they ‘fit in’ in the office environment?
Navarro: I don't think I have ADHD but I have learned a tremendous amount about it through Flown. It was a very unexpected and very moving moment when I realised that a majority of our members have some sort of attention deficit issues and are very open about it, they share. Also, I don’t know why, but Flown membership has what seems to be a larger than usual number of the population who are trans or non-binary. Now that is anecdotal, we haven’t crunched the numbers on that, but it’s definitely observable. It’s something I didn't expect and because [the members] will often write to me to tell me how much they love the platform, and they mention that sometimes they feel awkward in other situations, but because this is such a predictable and safe environment, they feel great.
The facilitators are really soothing and as a result, our members with ADHD or social anxiety or Autism Spectrum Disorder are relaying that that is extraordinarily effective for them. It’s just a wonderful bonus.
HRGV: What else does Flown offer?
Navarro: On our platform as well beyond that, we also have other on-demand content that helps with focus, so we call them portals and we have videos of famous people working and the idea is that you know how [the meditation app] Calm has these sleep stories, read by soothing or famous people? That’s how our work portals operate – it’s what I call ‘efficiency meditation’!
I think in terms of how Flown helps, most people are working remotely or doing a hybrid week – and after the pandemic and working from home for so long, our social skills started to degrade. Most of us also haven't had the time to build resilience and strong discipline around workplace rituals and that's not just young people, that’s all of us.
I truly believe that what mindfulness and meditation were for the past decade, deep work and flow states will be for the next decade.
