Flow — The Psychology of Optimal Experience
Productivity (and happiness) peaks with these 10 factors
Published in
2 min readOct 6, 2013
In his book, “Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience”, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi identifies the following ten factors as accompanying an experience of flow:
- Clear goals—expectations and rules are discernible and goals are attainable and align appropriately with one’s skill set and abilities. Moreover, the challenge level and skill level should both be high.
- Concentrating—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—one’s 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.
- A lack of awareness of bodily needs—to the extent that one can reach a point of great hunger or fatigue without realizing it.
- Absorption into the activity, narrowing of the focus of awareness down to the activity itself, action awareness merging.
Not all are needed for flow to be experienced.