Flow

The concept of flow is a mental state of operation in which the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing; being characterized by a feeling of great freedom, enjoyment, and skill where out of such activity, temporal concerns abate. The terminology "flow" is the label psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi gives to the feeling of complete and energized focus in an activity, with a high level of reward and fulfillment.

As Csikszentmihalyi sees it, the components of a flow producing activity include being potentially qualified for the activity; i.e. it’s not too easy or too difficult. An “optimal” activity is characterized as one that has clear goals, one with discernable rules, and one that allows direct feedback. In this mental state, we are able to concentrate on the activity, we feel that we are in control, our worries and concerns disappear, and our subjective experience of time is altered. Not all of these concepts, however, are needed simultaneously for “flow” to be experienced.

Etymology
Flow is so named because during Csikszentmihalyi's 1975 interviews several people described their 'flow' experiences using the metaphor of a current carrying them along. The psychological concept of flow as becoming absorbed in an activity is thus unrelated to the older phrase "to go with the flow" which means "to conform".

Group flow
Csikszentmihalyi suggests several ways in which a group could work together so that each individual member could achieve flow. The characteristics of such a group include:


 * Creative spatial arrangements: Chairs, pin walls, charts, however no tables, therefore primarily work in standing and moving.
 * Playground design : Charts for information inputs, flow graphs, project summary, craziness (here also craziness has a place), safe place (here all may say what is otherwise only thought), result wall, open topics
 * Parallel, organized working
 * Target group focus
 * Advancement of existing one (prototyping)
 * Efficiency increase by visualization
 * Difference of the participants is a chance

Related observations and disciplines
Csikszentmihalyi may have been the first to describe this concept in Western Psychology, but as he himself readily acknowledges he was most certainly not the first to notice the psychological phenomenon or to develop techniques based upon it.

For over two and a half millennia, practitioners of Eastern spiritual traditions, such as Buddhism and Taoism have honed this discipline as a very central part of their spiritual development. Japanese practitioners have practised such Zen Buddhist techniques in order to master their chosen art forms (martial or otherwise), including everything from Kendo to Ikebana.

The much over-used phrase "being at one with things" may also refer to this concept.

In education, there is the concept of overlearning which seems to be an important factor in this technique -- at least when physical skills are being practiced. In addition, many modern sports people commonly experience this phenomena, referring to it as being in the zone.

It is worth noting that, while the basic idea is the same in the East and West, shared among scientists, spiritual masters, and sportspeople, only Csikszentmihalyi seems to have drawn conclusions from this about improving modern Western cultural elements such as playground design, while others focus on the potential for spiritual development, physical mastery, or other forms of self-improvement. Indeed, Eastern spiritual practitioners have developed a very thorough and holistic set of theories around the subject, though tested and refined in a way that is different from the systematic rigor and controls that modern scientific psychologists attempt to employ.