Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
Flow is that optimal state of mind between boredom and anxiety where individuals perform their best and feel their best. It is the experience of being completely engaged in a task that you lose track of time. Flow does not only occur while playing a sport or a video game, but flow can occur through your day by making a few tweaks and convert those stressful projects and tedious tasks enjoyable and into flow-producing activities. Flow can show in simple activities such as doing your chores, writing an email, completing assignments, Etc. People often feel that their lives have been wasted, that instead of being filled with happiness, their years were spent in anxiety and boredom. How can we make sure that our life is worth living?
By improving our experiences. Happiness is not a permanent state of mind. It must be fostered and defended. The best bits usually occur when a person's body or mind is brought to its limits in a willful effort to accomplish something challenging and rewarding. These experiences are generic to all cultures and periods. Therefore, the author describes them as Flow experiences.
The 5 Principles to Remodel Any Activity into Flow
Set the goals of the activity: Formulate a significant purpose and as many subgoals as needed.
Find steps to measure growth: Design mechanisms to track your progress.
Concentrate on the assignment at hand: Dedicate your full attention to the task. No multitasking is allowed.
Develop the skills needed to make progress: Make an effort to improve every skill required.
Keep upping the stakes: Once you accomplish your goals, go back to step 1 and create even bolder plans.
Four keys factors influence the state Flow throughout the day for any individual:
Focus
To access flow, “a person must concentrate attention on the task at hand and momentarily forget everything else...Flow‐ producing activities require an initial investment of attention before (they) begin to be enjoyable.” ‐ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Begin flow at work by commencing each task with a focus exercise to cultivate single‐pointed attention. Close your eyes and pay attention to music or your breathing for a moment. When you open your eyes, lead that focus on the task at hand. Think of your focus exercise like a warm‐up routine before a workout. The purpose is to make the transition from the scattered guide to single‐pointed focus smoother.
“Flow-producing activities require an initial investment of attention before (they) begin to be enjoyable.” ‐ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Freedom
“In flow there is no room for self-scrutiny.” ‐ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
“An individual can get their ego mixed up with climbing in all sorts of ways...However, when things become automatic, it is like an egoless thing. Somehow the right thing is done without them ever thinking about it..."
The best way to activate an egoless, judgment‐free state of mind is to set permission timers. I start 10‐30‐minute countdowns throughout the day and permit myself to work without editing my work or critiquing my ideas. I generate ideas freely and trust my ability to execute tasks on autopilot. The goal is to get into a Zen‐like state and watch yourself produce results automatically and effortlessly.
Feedback
“The climber inching up a vertical wall of rock has a very simple goal in mind: to complete the climb without falling. Every second, hour after hour, he receives information that he is meeting that basic goal.” - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Chess players inflow have the clear objective to mate the opponent's king before his king is mated. "With each move, he can calculate whether he has come closer to this objective." To determine if your actions at work are moving you closer to your objective, you must give yourself feedback throughout the day. I do this by setting an hour's alarm. When the alarm goes off, I ask myself, "What did I accomplish in the last hour?" and "What can I accomplish in the next hour?" This hourly check‐in helps me clarify my goals and determine if my actions align with my goals. These brief check-ins help me find the flow sweet spot (the four percent challenge).
Four % Challenge
If you are playing chess, you should play chess against players rated just 4% higher than you. If you play a weaker player, you will win too quickly and be bored. If you play a Grandmaster like Magnus Carlson, you will get crushed and find the experience frustrating and hopeless. Nevertheless, if you compete against people who are just slightly better than you (rated 4% higher than you), you know you can win if you dig deep, dedicate your attention to the task at hand, and experience flow. If you adjust the difficulty of work tasks to be slightly more challenging than what you can do comfortably, you might find flow.
“Most enjoyable activities are not natural; they demand an effort that initially one is reluctant to make. But once the interaction starts to provide feedback to the person's skills, it usually begins to be intrinsically rewarding.” - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
If you can comfortably finish your assignment in 20 minutes, push yourself to complete that task in 18 minutes. If you can comfortably clean your room in 20 minutes, make yourself to do it 30 seconds faster. You will know if your challenge is in the 4% zone if half the time you meet expectations and half the time you do not.
In the end, it is possible to turn work tasks into flow-producing activities, first by warming up your focus entirely to the task at hand and freeing yourself from worry and scrutiny by working without critiquing yourself. After your period of freedom, give yourself feedback based on the work you did, and lastly, adjust the challenge to be 4% harder than you can comfortably deal with. Even the most flourishing career, the most satisfying family relationship eventually runs flat. Sooner or later, engagement in a job should be reduced. To approach optimal experience as closely as is humanly possible, the last step in controlling consciousness is necessary. What this involves is turning all life into a unified flow experience. By activating these four flow factors, you can drastically increase the odds of finding that sweet and magical region between anxiety and boredom and have an optimal experience at work and love what you do every day.
References:
I got my references from the book "Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience" by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. It teaches how, by ordering the information that enters our consciousness, we can discover true happiness, unlock our potential, and greatly improve the quality of our lives.
