More specifically, flow can be achieved in both physical and mental activities, both with people and alone, and both at work and during leisure. In fact, one of the author's goals is to explain how a person can and should find flow in practically every activity he's engaged in. Clearly, flow is possible not only in computer programming. A person in flow is a happy person, and thus directing one's life on a path to being in flow as much as possible is desirable. The author claims that flow is a major key to happiness. The state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it. In this book (from 1990) Csíkszentmihályi summarizes his ideas in a layman-friendly fashion (previous publications have been more academic). Not many know, however, that such a state has been clearly defined and explained by the psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi in the 1970s. Being "in the zone" is a very desirable state, because it's the one where programmers are most productive. It's when we get so immersed in coding that time passes by very quickly. This is the state of "being in the zone", or "being in flow". We coders know a state which is familiar to everyone, even if a bit hard to explain. I’ve read other self-help books but I find Flow to be one of the best pieces of literature in the genre.As are most of this blog's readers, I'm a computer programmer. Along with my own personal development this book enforced a lot of positive principles to getting in sync with your surroundings. In some ways reading this book is like going to therapy. This book does require additional comprehension effort if you want to get the most out of it. In connection to my personal read through of this book, I did not find the desire and energy to read Flow until I made a mental breakthrough to a new way of focusing my mental energy in combination with proper time management. In Chapter 6: The Flow of Thought the author references The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn on the rules of nature being constrained by the current paradigm of technology or thought. After reading the book I often work to find a healthy ways to learn new skills, as well as identifying challenges to work on. At certain points we may find ourselves being underwhelmed and overwhelmed while performing a task. The image displays a trend along the graph that translates acquiring new skills and being meet with a challenge. This diagram is an excellent representation of how and when to find flow within an activity. In Chapter 4: The Conditions of Flow has a diagram with two axes including challenges and skills.
Additionally, it helped me better understand how to manage other individuals when building skill sets. The content in the book provided me with a new viewpoint on how to manage my own skills. Instead of rushing through, I often found myself reading sections of the book, re-reading them, and going into deep thought about some of the subject matter. This book is an essential look at personal development, as well as serves as a guide to understanding how to increase complexity when problem solving.įlow provides 240 pages of informative and usually content.