Flow is the capacity to enter, sustain and leave periods of deeply absorbed engagement when attention, skill, challenge and meaningful activity align.
Flow is the capacity to enter, sustain and leave periods of deeply absorbed engagement when attention, skill, challenge and meaningful activity align.
During flow, self-conscious monitoring may recede and action becomes unusually coherent.
It can feel effortless despite requiring substantial effort.
But flow should not be romanticized.
Losing track of time is not always healthy absorption. People can become compulsively engaged in activities that damage other parts of life.
The ability to leave the state matters too.
Healthy flow belongs inside a larger ecology of attention.