Have you ever been so absorbed in an activity that time just seemed to melt away? When you’re deeply focused on a challenging task that you have enough skill to complete, and the activity is rewarding for its own sake, you can enter a state that psychologists call the ‘flow state’. You might know it as just being ‘in the zone’.
This isn’t just a rare moment of inspiration - getting into the flow state is a skill you can train, and its benefits may be substantial. For example, there is evidence suggesting that experiencing flow state is correlated with:
Performance at work and in athletic activity
And more!
This week, we’re taking a dive into the science of the flow state, and giving you evidence-based tips on how you can achieve it more regularly.
What is the Flow State?
The flow state (also just called ‘flow’) is a psychological concept coined by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi in the 1970s, describing moments of what he called “optimal experience”, where you are fully engaged in an activity, you lose track of time, and you feel a sense of effortless control.
You’ve probably experienced it before - studies have found that it is achievable in a very wide array of contexts, such as playing sport, dancing, working on a creative project, or solving a challenging problem at work, and beyond.
Psychologists disagree on the best way to break down the flow state into its different dimensions. While there is a consensus on some of its elements, some break it down into 3 components, while it is common for others to use as many as 9. Here’s a list of components you might find in such a breakdown:
Clear goals: You understand the task’s structure or instructions and know what you are trying to accomplish.
Immediate and unambiguous feedback: You have access to rapid and unambiguous feedback about how well you are doing
Challenge-skill-balance: The difficulty of the task is high enough to make you feel challenged, but not so high that you constantly fail.
Autotelic experience: It feels enjoyable and rewarding in itself, regardless of the outcome.
Concentration: You are concentrating on the task without distraction
Loss of self-consciousness: You lose focus on yourself - no longer worrying about how you appear to others or about your abilities
Sense of control: You feel in control of your actions and you believe in your ability to navigate obstacles
Merging of action and awareness: You are fully absorbed in the task, so that action feels automatic; you stop thinking consciously about the act itself (e.g., a musician not thinking about each individual note or how to move their fingers and instead just playing)
Time transformation: Your perception of time changes - which could mean slowing down, allowing you to experience every detail of the task with heightened awareness, or speeding up, where hours feel like minutes
We’re going to use these 9 components as a framework to walk you through what the science says you can do to achieve the flow state more often.
Picking the right task to induce a flow state
Some tasks are more prone to make you experience flow than others. Theory and empirical research indicate that you should focus on picking a task with the following components of flow, if you want to have the best shot of experiencing it:
Clear Goals: You understand the task’s structure or instructions and know what you are trying to accomplish.
Clarity eliminates uncertainty, allowing you to direct all your attention toward the task without second-guessing what to do next. For example, when working on a coding project, the clear goal might be to create a specific feature or resolve a particular bug, rather than simply ‘improving the code’ (which would be an unclear goal). You know exactly what needs to be done, so your focus isn’t scattered, and you can stay engaged with the task.
If you’re wanting to experience more flow state in a specific context (e.g., with your work), consider trying to clarify more specific goals. We have a tool that can help you with this!
Immediate and unambiguous feedback: You have frequent (or constant) information about how far you are progressing and how well you are doing.
For example when playing a musical instrument, you can instantly hear whether a note is played correctly or not. This constant feedback keeps you fully immersed and motivated to improve as you play. A sustained period of not knowing how you are performing may make it more difficult to stay in a flow state.
Challenge-skill-balance: The difficulty of the task is high but is balanced by your level of skill.
For example, when rock climbing, the route you choose should be tough enough to keep you engaged, but not so difficult that it feels impossible. This balance between challenge and your current skill level helps you stay in flow. If a task is too easy for our skill level we can easily become bored which can lead to loss of focus. If a task is too hard for our skill level, we may become frustrated, get stressed out, or get stuck. That means that in tasks that involve success or failure (e.g., trying to climb to the top of a bouldering wall), to maximize flow you would take on challenges where there is neither the near certainty of success nor the near certainty of failure.
The following image shows the Quadrant Model of Flow State, which attempts to express the relationship between skill, challenge, and flow:
(Adapted from Optimal experience in work and leisure.)
There is also evidence that the optimal balance between the amount of skill needed to complete a task and how demanding the task is will change from context to context and person to person. For instance, when tasks are rated as highly important (such as a looming deadline for a big work project), flow state is experienced more by those whose skills exceed the demands of the task. Whereas, when the importance of the task is low (such as playing a video game), flow state is experienced in high levels also by those whose skills merely match the demands of the task.
Similarly, those who experience more fear of failure appear to experience more flow when their skills exceed the demands of the task (rather than simply matching the demands of the task).
Of course, not all activities are skill-related at all. It takes no skill to passively watch TV or stroll through a park. That means those activities will not, according to the definition used by experts, be associated with a flow state (even if you can experience some aspects of flow state while engaging in them).
On top of those features, some models emphasize that it matters that you experience the activity as rewarding, as seen in the next criterion.
Autotelic experience: It is enjoyable and rewarding in itself, regardless of the outcome.
To find a task rewarding in this way (i.e., regardless of outcome) means that the task is providing you with one or more things that are intrinsic values for you (for example, that could be learning, the expression of creativity, or simply pleasure). Studies have shown that people intrinsically value a wide range of things and that different people intrinsically value different things. Hence, the specific tasks you find rewarding in this way may differ from the tasks that others do. To help you find out what kinds of tasks you might find most autotelic / intrinsically valuable, we have some tools you can try.
The Intrinsic Values Test is a quiz to help you find out what you value at the deepest level'. In order to make it easier to achieve flow state, you could try finding out what you value intrinsically and then reflecting on what tasks you can engage in that help generate those things you value.
The Your Greatest Sources of Pleasure tool will help you discover what brings you the most joy and personal life satisfaction, as well as give you tips for how to experience them more often. If you wish to find tasks that you find conducive to flow state, it might help to reflect on what your greatest sources of pleasure are and seek tasks that relate to those.
Finding the right environment for a flow state
Achieving flow isn’t just about the task itself — it’s also about where and how you work. The right environment can help minimize distractions, enhance focus, and create the mental clarity needed to fully immerse yourself in a task. Here are some tips on how to set the stage for optimal flow.
Concentration: You are concentrating on the task without distraction
No matter how you break it down, flow state is characterized by being deeply focused on a task. This means it can help to ensure your environment is free of things that might easily break your concentration.
Consider eliminating obvious distractions like your phone, notifications, or background noise, and creating a dedicated workspace where you can work uninterrupted for extended periods. Working with noise-canceling headphones or music without lyrics is also helpful for some people. Studies have found that things like lighting, air quality, temperature, and noise can have significant effects on performance, so reflect on what the ideal levels of those things are for you.
Loss of self-consciousness: You lose focus on yourself - no longer worrying about how you appear to others or about your abilities.
Anything that is likely to make you more aware of yourself can run counter to achieving a flow state. This can mean avoiding things like working in front of a mirror, or an audience, working in unfamiliar environments, and having to resist temptations.
Sense of control: You feel in control of your actions and you believe in your ability to navigate obstacles
Researchers specializing in flow have speculated that “it seems plausible to argue that employees in a work context characterized by low autonomy are less likely to experience flow" because of the lower degree of control experienced by those workers. They point to evidence such as a study finding that teachers reported more experience of flow state when they had a sufficient amount of autonomy in their job.
If you find yourself in a job or situation where you have little control over how you approach tasks, look for ways to introduce more autonomy where possible. This might involve negotiating more flexible working conditions, setting your own goals, or organizing your workflow in a way that suits your strengths. Even small adjustments — like deciding when to take breaks or choosing the order in which to complete tasks — might give you a greater sense of control and increase your likelihood of entering a flow state.
The Result: Flow State!
If you are able to put all of the above conditions in place, it will help you maximize your chances of entering the flow state. In that state, you will also be more likely to experience these additional aspects of flow as well:
Merging of action and awareness: You are fully absorbed in the task, so that action feels automatic; you stop thinking consciously about the act itself (e.g., a musician not thinking about each individual note or how to move their fingers and instead just playing)
Time transformation: Your perception of time changes - which could mean slowing down, allowing you to experience every detail of the task with heightened awareness, or speeding up, where hours feel like minutes
As well as:
Focused concentration
Reduced self-consciousness
Feeling of control
Involvement and enjoyment
Motivation to do the task for its own sake.
Those are the experiential components of flow state. Putting all this together, we get the following:
(Adapted from Antecedents, Boundary Conditions and Consequences of Flow)
So, to recap, to help you achieve a flow state, you'll want to make sure:
Your task has the right features
Clear goals
Immediate feedback
Challenge-skill-balance
Autotelic experience
Your environment is conducive to
Concentration
Loss of self-consciousness
Sense of control
The key takeaway is that flow isn't some mystical experience reserved for rare moments of inspiration; it's something you can cultivate deliberately by choosing the right tasks and creating an optimal environment.
By paying attention to these elements, you could find yourself more deeply engaged, more productive, and more fulfilled in things you do. So, the next time you're facing a task, set yourself up for flow — and enjoy the benefits of being in the zone!