How To Find Your `Flow`

Fun and flow may give an illusion of productivity, but it generates energy to move forward and sometimes, it can be upwards.

We have all read countless “how to be efficient” articles, but instead of stating the obvious like removing distractions, none stated about how to hunt for your “flow” hours, and condition oneself to get into that state. Now that we have heard so much about getting into the `flow`, but how do we really get into it?

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s flow model

Flow theory postulates 3 conditions that have to be met to achieve a flow state:

1. One must be involved in an activity with a clear set of goals and progress, which will set direction and structure to the task.
2. The task at hand must have clear and immediate feedback to guide the person to adjust their performance in any changing demands to maintain the flow state.
3. In order to have confidence in one’s ability to complete the task, one must have a good balance between the perceived challenges of the task and their own perceived skills.

Schaffer (2013) proposed 7 flow conditions:

1. Knowing what to do
2. Knowing how to do it
3. Knowing how well you are doing
4. Knowing where to go (in this article, I used the term, Ecological Domain, to describe a domain including both the physical environment and mental environment)
5…