Most of us have experienced the “mental state of operation in which the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing, characterized by a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity.”
It was made popular as a concept called Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.
While the basic idea was already spoken about for a long time especially in Eastern spiritual teachings Mihaly was the first to link it to more physical things like Playground design.
Forgetting the fancy explanation, most people just say that “time flies”. And it does, and not just when you are having fun. None of them are essential but some of the possible components of a flow state are:
- Clear goals (expectations and rules are discernable).
- Concentrating and focusing, a high degree of concentration on a limited field of attention (a person engaged in the activity will have the opportunity to focus and to delve deeply into it).
- A loss of the feeling of self-consciousness, the merging of action and awareness.
- Distorted sense of time - our subjective experience of time is altered.
- Direct and immediate feedback (successes and failures in the course of the activity are apparent, so that behavior can be adjusted as needed).
- Balance between ability level and challenge (the activity is neither too easy nor too difficult).
- A sense of personal control over the situation or activity.
- The activity is intrinsically rewarding, so there is an effortlessness of action.
Ben Casnocha brought up an interesting idea today, Does the “Flow” Distorted Time Criterion Work in Large Time Chunks, Too?
When I think about it time can fly for a whole day, an hour, or even a couple of days - linking this back to the flow state is interesting though. Can you use some of the methods listed above to get into a flow state for years? Why not? It looks to me like a nice checklist for your organisational process and philosophy.