Flow State — What It’s For and Why You Need It
Flow State helps make great work
Let go your conscious self and act on instinct. — Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Singing the praises of Flow State
Creating things that grab your audience requires Flow, that magic state of immersion and concentration where the world goes away and it’s just you and the work.
You’ve felt Flow. You’ve been so engrossed in a task that everything — time, other people, your surroundings — dropped away. It’s hyper-focus and your best work is often the result. Also, it produces a state of contentment that’s unlike anything else.
Only recently did someone codify Flow and give it a name. In 1975, Hungarian-American psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi coined the term — although he didn’t publish his bestselling book Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement With Everyday Life until 1998.
Flow State is highly desirable, but how do you get there? Here’s a paraphrased checklist from the website Very Well Mind…
- Set Goals: Like in chess. You know what your aim is in chess. It’s beating your opponent. You know what your tools are — your pieces and how they move. Apply that metaphor to the task at hand. What is your goal…
