How to Design Flow Experiences to Propel Your Creative Work
Using the Find Your Flow Checklist to Optimize your Focus, Fulfillment, and Creative Performance.🤘
Flow — The State of Peak Creative Performance
What would you say if I told you there was a “master key” that would help you:
- Achieve deeper levels of focus
- Unleash higher levels of creativity
- Amplify your enjoyment for your work
- More effortlessly create consistent momentum
- Finish your projects in less time
Would you believe me?
This master key is Flow, the state of optimal experience — where you’re operating at your highest levels of creativity and performance.
It also happens to be the most fulfilling state you can experience in life.
What is Flow?
Being so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter. The ego falls away. Time flies.
Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you’re using your skills to the utmost.
- Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Sounds nice, right?
Wouldn’t it be great if you could bring more Flow into your work and life?
You may think getting into this state of optimal performance is out of your control — a blessing from the creative gods that is gifted to you unpredictably.
This may be your current experience with Flow, but it’s simply not true.
You can actually deliberately design your experiences to increase your likelihood of getting into Flow.
More Flow = bringing your biggest ideas to life faster, more effortlessly, and with more enjoyment.
In my time spent in my Positive Psychology PhD program studying under the Flow master himself (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi), from my own experiences bringing more Flow to my creative endeavors, and from coaching clients across every creative domain, I’ve identified 6 specific “levers” that you can use to deliberately design your activities for more Flow.
These Flow levers are:
1 — Complete Focus
Maximizing your focus is key to tapping into the state of ‘Flow.’
In a world rampant with distractions and the allure of multitasking, achieving complete focus can feel like an uphill battle. However, through deliberate effort and the right strategies, it’s possible to design an environment conducive to this heightened state of concentration.
Key strategies include minimizing distractions, establishing the right workspace, setting time boundaries, and understanding what elements enhance your focus.
In the Find Your Flow Checklist, you’ll dive deeper into how you can design your work sessions for more focus, ultimately boosting your productivity and creative output.
*Read more about designing your work and life for Complete Focus here.
2— Clear and Specific Goals (or Rules)
To create an opportunity for Flow, you must direct your attention on a clear goal (or at the very least, a strong sense of what you want to accomplish).
A clear, compelling goal locks in your attention on a target.
When your attention is locked in, it becomes more impenetrable to other non-priority elements in our environment — and thus helps your attention reach peak absorption and Flow.
However, common obstacles like idea overwhelm, overcomplication, and fear of decision-making often hinder goal clarity.
By asking the right questions, you can determine your priorities, simplify and specify your goals, and establish a set of guiding rules that can greatly enhance your chances of reaching Flow.
*Click here to discover more about these strategies to enhance your creativity and entrepreneurial productivity.
3 — Clear, Immediate Feedback
An essential component of achieving Flow is setting up clear, immediate feedback mechanisms for your tasks, where each action provides instant feedback on progress.
This instant feedback not only sharpens focus but also informs how close you are to your goal.
Learning how to identify your progress and success, set measurable milestones, and effectively track your progress can enhance your state of Flow.
*Read this article to discover how these strategies can elevate your creative workflow and push your projects toward their finish line.
4— Challenge X Skill Balance
Achieving Flow requires the right blend of Challenge and Skill utilization.
In your creative or entrepreneurial work, maintaining this balance could mean elevating the challenge when boredom strikes or developing the necessary skills to cope with high-stakes or complex situations.
Experiment with various factors, such as speed, intensity, quantity, complexity, and novelty, to dial in the right level of challenge, or transform your tasks into engaging games.
*In this piece, you’ll learn how to navigate this complex dynamic to find your Flow, paving the way for optimal performance and creativity.
5 — Enjoyment (Autotelic Experience)
Discover the power of turning your creative work into an ‘autotelic’ experience — an activity that you undertake purely for the sake of experiencing it.
Trying to be more “disciplined” and forcing things often just hinder your productivity and creativity.
Instead, focus on making your creative tasks more fun and engaging. Embrace the process as its own reward, and design your tasks to become more enjoyable.
*Learn how to transform your work into an experience you genuinely want to engage in, ultimately paving the way for Flow and boosting your creative productivity.
6 — Loss of Self-Consciousness
If you’re too in your head, you won’t get into Flow.
Learn how to sidestep self-consciousness and let go of the internal negative voices that impede your creative and entrepreneurial journey.
Dive into strategies that help you concentrate on the present, minimize the influence of fears, and maximize your potential for achieving Flow.
Curious about how you can redirect your attention, challenge limiting beliefs, and lessen perfectionism?
*Click through to put into practice transformative questions that can reshape your mindset and skyrocket your creativity.
Experience More Flow: Design Your Work and Life for More Flow
👉Grab your free copy of the Find Your Flow Checklist.
⚡️Use this checklist before any creative work session to significantly increase your chances of getting into Flow.🤘
When you get the free checklist, you’ll also get a free mini-course via email diving deeper into each Flow element.
Let me know what questions you have.
NOTE: I’ll be updating this document with more internal links to Medium articles digging into designing Flow experiences to propel your creative work. Stay tuned as I go deeper into each element and share more here on Medium.
More About Coach Jeff
My name is Jeff Fajans (rhymes with “lions”) and I help creative entrepreneurs bring their biggest ideas to life and reach their next level of creative success.
I have a PhD in Positive Organizational Psychology from Claremont Graduate University, where I studied under Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the world-renowned author of Flow. My research focused on how to help people learn, develop, and lead more effectively to better achieve creative goals.
I am also an avid music creator and guitar player. 🤘
Through my 1-on-1 coaching, 30-Day Creative Momentum Challenge community, internationally acclaimed digital courses, and speaking engagements, I’ve helped thousands of people from around the world connect with their purpose, clarify their creative vision, amplify their motivation, and create actionable strategies that make achieving their most meaningful goals inevitable.
These are people who are pursuing big goals like starting or leading a business (and scaling it to higher levels of innovation & growth), writing + filming a feature film (and it winning a Sundance award), building an app or product (and getting accepted into Y Combinator or getting VC funding), writing a book (and hitting the Amazon bestseller list) or even exploring a meaningful side hustle or passion project.
