How to enter the "stream": a magic scheme that will suit everyone

A stream is a magical place in which you are completely absorbed in what you are doing, where time passes so quickly that it seems that it does not exist at all . Of course, this behavior pattern will not work for everyone, but it will seem quite acceptable to someone! Reflections of Chris Bailey (Chris Bailey) on how to get to this place without radical changes in his own life.

I recently finished reading the book Flow (Flow ^★ ) Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Mihai Cikszentmihayi); This is a pretty boring and dry book, but it contains some brilliant things. These include, for example, the scheme published in the book. But I decided to improve it a bit.
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Let's add some color, correct the lines, make the design more appealing ...



Well, much better.

If you do not have the slightest idea of ​​what this scheme represents, do not worry. Here is briefly what is depicted on it:

• Any kind of activity that you do can find a place for itself in this scheme (depending on how complicated it is (for you) and how much of your skills it will use).
• An ideal place for him, you guessed it, in the "stream". In it, the complexity of your task ideally coincides with your skills. Especially if you have the motivation to do something . As Mihai Chikszentmihai says, you will be very happy in this flow. For example, writing “Csikszentmihalyi” is a rather difficult task, but it doesn’t need a lot of skills, which brings this type of activity to the “Restlessness” corner.

In the Stream book, Mihai uses tennis training to illustrate how we enter the flow state. I added four circles to my diagram to make out this example.



“1” is your starting position. Here you play tennis for the first time. Learn to serve the ball (which is difficult, but doable for the first time) and try to get to the other part of the court from your seat (or something like that - I confess, I don’t understand tennis at all). In this segment, you are experiencing a streaming state, because your task is equal to your skills, and you have fun.

Then one of two things can happen.

You are moving to "2" . You improve your skills until it becomes boring to just throw the ball over the net. The task of the game is now below the level of your skills, and you are no longer in the flow.

You go to "3" . And set yourself a task that makes you tense up - for example, you decided to play tennis with a friend-athlete, and he “made you”. Here the task is higher — that is, more difficult than the level of your skills, and you no longer experience the sensation of flow.

Depending on where you are, there are two ways to return to the streaming channel.

If you are bored ( “2” ), you will need to find a more difficult task, for example, to find a partner to play with skills equal to yours.

If you are concerned ( “3” ), you will need to improve your tennis skills in order to return to the stream (you can also reduce the difficulty of the task, but this is not so easy to do in practice).

Mihai says this

“Explains how a streaming state leads to growth and discovery.” A person cannot like to do the same thing, staying at the same level for a long time. We either get bored or we get upset; then the desire to enjoy something pushes us to improve skills or to open up new possibilities for using existing ones. ”

Any kind of activity that you do is somewhere on this diagram, and, according to the Cixentmihayi study, precisely those types of activity that are able to streamline will make you the happiest.

Then you have to either improve skills or change tasks, adapting them to yourself, in order to experience the streaming state more often.

PS We recommend another article on the topic - 21 tips, allowing you to become the most productive person .

Translated by Vyacheslav Davidenko, founder of MBA Consult .