I recently read Getting Things Done: The Science behind Stress-Free Productivity, an academic paper by Francis Heylighen and Clément Vidal which attempts to explain GTD from a scientific perspective. It is not for the casual reader, but it was a take on GTD I had never seen explored previously, and it was a very interesting read.
One of the ideas they discuss as it relates to GTD that really gripped me was that of “flow.” Flow is a concept developed by Mihaly Csikszentmihayli, and they explain it as follows:
“Flow is the pleasurable state that people experience when they are absorbed in an activity that demands their full attention, but such that they feel in control, i.e. able to effectively move towards their goal, however far away this goal still may be… Flow is characterized by a clear sense of goals, and by continuous feedback indicating in how far the last action brought the situation closer to the goal. To experience flow, challenges should match skills, i.e. the task should be neither too difficult, which would produce stress and anxiety, nor too easy, which would produce boredom. During flow, people tend to forget their worries and even their notion of time, focusing completely on the task at hand. Typical flow producing activities (for those who are good at them) are playing a video game, performing music, painting, playing tennis, or climbing rocks. But flow can also be achieved during everyday work—even during something as prosaic as assembly work on a factory conveyor belt—provided the above conditions are met (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990).”
For all the times I’ve felt “in the zone,” until I read this paragraph I had never previously thought about the psychological drivers behind it. My immediate reaction was to reflect on the experiences that caused me to have flow as well as thoughts of people who have it. The 2004 Red Sox? They had it. Tiger Woods? He’s got it. A sales person on a tear? Flow to the extreme.
When I’ve had flow in a work setting, I have achieved a state of almost uber-productivity. It’s definitely worth it to take a minute to ask yourself: what type of work gets you to flow? How can you set up your work environment to more frequently achieve flow? I guarantee it will be worth the effort.