Embracing do nothing days and practising nourishing flow states
Table of Contents
Encouraging flow
What is flow?
Being “in the zone”. More on Wikipedia
The 4 Fs of Flow (10 min video with subtitles):
- Focus
- Freedom: Letting go of fear and scrutiny
- Feedback: Am I getting closer to my goal or not?
- 4%: Optimal challenge
Learning this is really validating my decision to go freelance. Wanting to create an environment that has more of each of these is exactly what I’m aiming for.
Intrinsically rewarding
Clear goals and a sense of purpose: Especially good if you set these yourself
Clear and immediate feedback: What you’re doing and where you’re going
Challenge and perceived skills match
Intense focus on the present moment
What gets me into flow
- Walking and observing nature
- Studying
- Reading, watching or listening to, fascinating stories
- Puzzling asynchronous ways of working recommendations
- Designing workshops, especially co-designing
It has to be stuff that really interests me. If it’s not captivating, there’s not much chance of flow. I say this, but having looked up ‘what is flow’, it’s kinda redundant because that’s true for everyone!
Unscheduled time: The Joy of Unshoulding
Rest, relaxation and nurturing flow.
I spent the whole weekend Chilling with Do Nothing Days & Unscheduled Time. It was glorious. I did a lot of studying. Because I’m a giant nerd, hurray! And I read Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn, on a whim. I enjoyed it.
Although, sometimes no schedule is hard…
The tyranny of choicelessness. The tyranny of decision fatigue.
Just going with the flow helps. Like, if I think, ‘oh, I could read a book’, and then I just do it. Rather than going on to think, ‘or I could watch a film, I could do some studying, maybe I’ll go for a walk, oh, there’s a podcast I wanted to listen to…’ etc.
Drowning in fun choices is not fun.
Next steps
- Read Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
- Look for TED talks
- Practise creating environments that encourage flow
Overcoming sunk cost fallacy, a work in progress!
I know a lot of my behaviour is motivated by loss aversion. I especially want to overcome the sunk cost fallacy, at least a little! So I started watching videos about it. I’ve been learning about Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman via Octalysis Prime, with its founder Yu-kai Chou going through the book chapter by chapter.
Daily blogging this week
- Repetition is a reliable form of change
- Thank you Anna Jackson and Fisher Qua for “repetition is a reliable form of change”. I keep coming back to it… 😉
- I love learning; what motivates me? Exploring 8 core drives
- Exploring motivation with the Octalysis framework and introspection.
- I’m so exhausted: Zzz…
- 11 indulgent foods for under £15, and they’re vegan
- There are no universal questions
- Chilling with Do Nothing Days & Unscheduled Time