Flow

Flow is the mental state of operation in which the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing, characterized by a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity. Proposed by psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, the concept has been widely referenced across a variety of fields.

Colloquial terms for this or similar mental states include: to be on the ball, in the zone, or in the groove.

Components of flow
Csíkszentmihályi identifies the following as accompanying an experience of flow:
 * 1) Clear goals (expectations and rules are discernible and goals are attainable and align appropriately with one's skill set and abilities).
 * 2) Concentrating and focusing, a high degree of concentration on a limited field of attention (a person engaged in the activity will have the opportunity to focus and to delve deeply into it).
 * 3) A loss of the feeling of self-consciousness, the merging of action and awareness.
 * 4) Distorted sense of time, one's subjective experience of time is altered.
 * 5) Direct and immediate feedback (successes and failures in the course of the activity are apparent, so that behavior can be adjusted as needed).
 * 6) Balance between ability level and challenge (the activity is neither too easy nor too difficult).
 * 7) A sense of personal control over the situation or activity.
 * 8) The activity is intrinsically rewarding, so there is an effortlessness of action.
 * 9) People become absorbed in their activity, and focus of awareness is narrowed down to the activity itself, action awareness merging (Csíkszentmihályi, 1975. p.72).

Not all are needed for flow to be experienced.

Etymology
Flow is so named because during Csíkszentmihályi'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
Csíkszentmihályi 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, but no tables; thus work primarily 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)
 * Increase in efficiency through visualization
 * Existence of differences among participants represents an opportunity, rather than an obstacle.

Applications suggested by Csíkszentmihályi versus other practitioners
It is worth noting that only Csíkszentmihályi seems to have published suggestions for extrinsic applications of the Flow concept, such as design methods for playgrounds to elicit the Flow experience. Other practitioners of Csíkszentmihályi's Flow concept focus on intrinsic applications, such as spirituality, performance improvement or self-help. Reinterpretations of Csíkszentmihályi's Flow process exist to improve performance in areas as diverse as business, piano improvisation, sport psychology , and standup comedy.

Religion and spirituality
Csíkszentmihályi 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 quantify the concept of Flow or develop applications based on the concept.

For millennia, practitioners of Eastern religions such as Buddhism and Taoism have honed the discipline of overcoming the duality of self and object as a central feature of spiritual development. Eastern spiritual practitioners have developed a very thorough and holistic set of theories around overcoming duality of self and object, tested and refined through spiritual practice instead of the systematic rigor and controls of modern science.

The phrase "being at one with things" is a metaphor of Csíkszentmihályi's Flow concept. Practitioners of the varied schools of Zen Buddhism apply concepts similar to Flow to aid their mastery of art forms, including, in the case of Japanese Zen Buddhism, Aikido, Kendo and Ikebana.

The idea of overcoming duality of self and object is a key theme of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values by Robert Pirsig (1974). "When you're not dominated by feelings of separateness from what you're working on, then you can be said to 'care' about what you're doing. That is what caring really is: 'a feeling of identification with what one's doing.' When one has this feeling then you also see the inverse side of caring, quality itself." (page 290)

Education
In education, there is the concept of overlearning which seems to be an important factor in this technique, in that Csíkszentmihályi (1990) states that overlearning enables the mind to concentrate on visualizing the desired performance as a singular, integrated action instead of a set of actions.

Sports
The concept of "being in the zone" during an athletic performance fits within Csíkszentmihályi's description of the Flow experience, and theories and applications of "being in the zone" and its relationship with athletic competitive advantage are topics studied in the field of sport psychology. Musicians, especially improvisational soloists can experience a similar state of mind while playing their instrument.

Roy Palmer suggests that "being in the zone" may also influence movement patterns as better integration of the conscious and subconscious reflex functions improves coordination. Many athletes describe the effortless nature of their performance whilst achieving personal bests - see references.

The legendary soccer player Pelé described his experience of being in the zone: "I felt a strange calmness.. . a kind of euphoria. I felt I could run all day without tiring, that I could dribble through any of their team or all of them, that I could almost pass through them physically." Another example was given by Formula 1 driver Ayrton Senna, who during qualifying for the 1988 Monaco Grand Prix said he felt like he was driving the car beyond his limits. "I was already on pole, [...] and I just kept going. Suddenly I was nearly two seconds faster than anybody else, including my team mate with the same car. And suddenly I realised that I was no longer driving the car consciously. I was driving it by a kind of instinct, only I was in a different dimension. It was like I was in a tunnel. Not only the tunnel under the hotel but the whole circuit was a tunnel. I was just going and going, more and more and more and more. I was way over the limit but still able to find even more."

Video games
The same concept of flow is used in video games. After mastering the game's learning curve or sometimes even completely at random, the player may experience an increase of skill for no determined amount of time. Many (or all) key aspects of flow mentioned above are easily identifiable here.

Quote and Early Usage
As mentioned above, the idea of flow is nothing new, and one prime example of its place in the world, and in literature in particular, is the Jack London quote: There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive.