Flow

Microflow

- Activities bring enjoyment to otherwise low-skill and low-challenge activities.

Cziksentmihalyi

- Originator of defining flow. - o Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (1990)

Examples of Microflow

o Doodling o Humming o Radio o Fiddling with hair, nails, etc. o Eating a snack

Clear Goals Established for Each Step of the Activity

o Goals are attainable. o Goals align well with one's skills/abilities. o Neither too easy nor too difficult.

Key Elements of Flow

o Merging of action and awareness. o Forgetting about oneself; "loss of ego" o Centering of attention (concentration on a particular stimulus) o Free from worry of failure. o Self-Consciousness disappears. o Complete control of one's actions, the environment. o Sense of time is distorted (not paying attention) o Clear feedback, unambiguous (and non-contradictory) demands for action. o Autotelic: No external rewards.

Balance Between Challenges and Skills

o Not all of these are needed to experience flow, but the more you have, the greater the likelihood of flow experiences.

What is the Function of "Playful" Behavior?

o Play is an important part of a fulfilled, purposeful life (including adulthood).

Immediate Feedback on One's Actions

o Successes and failures are immediately apparent, allowing behavior to be adjusted as necessary for optimal performance.

Difference Between Distraction & Microflow

o The way you know its microflow, you are able to answer, cognitively aware. o Distraction, not paying attention, tuning out.

Conditions That Foster Flow

• 1. Clear goals established for each step of the activity. • 2. Immediate feedback on one's actions. • 3. Balance between challenges and skills. • Flow involves balance between challenges (action opportunities) & skills (action capability).

How to Increase Flow Experiences

• 1. Control your attention - focus on what you are doing. • 2. Adopt new values. • 3. Learn what flows. • 4. Transform routine tasks. Microflow. • 5. Flow in conversation. • 6. Smart leisure. o Choosing your leisure wisely based off of knowing how you are as a person. Structuring your days • 7. Smart work. • 8. Strive for superflow.

Flow

• A state of consciousness which can be achieved on an individual path, providing optimal performance. o Ex. Being in the zone during an athletic performance, "losing yourself" in a piece of music, reading. • State of intense absorption and involvement with the present moment.

Meaningfulness at Work

• Amy Wrzesniewski described three work orientations: 1. Job 2. Career 3. Calling

Autotelic Activity

• Any activity requiring significant effort from the individual, yet in itself provides few conventional, external rewards. • Auto: self • Telos: purpose or goal • The experience becomes its own reward. • Similar to intrinsic motivation (vs. extrinsic)

How can Playfulness be Cultivated?

• One way is to reassess the false dichotomy of "work" and "play" (they don't have to be mutually exclusive!) • How might one be restructured to feel like/ actually be more like the other? Work→ play

What is Flow? What is not Flow?

• People seem to get more flow from their jobs than from leisure activities in free time. • Watching TV is not a flow activity. People generally report higher levels of stress, depression, and tension after watching TV. It seems that TV's main virtue is that it occupies the mind undemandingly. o "Faux Flow" • Flow is not "wasting time." • Flow is hard to achieve without effort.

Career

• Work as a source of advancement, prestige, status. People with a career calling often have a willingness to make sacrifices for work advancement that others would not make.

Calling

• Work as an end in itself, with belief that it contributes to the greater good. A garbage collector who sees his work as making the world a cleaner, healthier place could have a Calling orientation. Tend to experience more meaning from working.

Job

• Work as source of material benefits that enable other parts of life. Major satisfaction comes from hobbies, relationships outside work. The meaning of work is primarily what it contributes to other domains.