Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
The Channel at the Edge of Your Skill
Too hard is anxiety, too easy is boredom
Flow, chapter four
The same task can make you lose track of time or make you squirm. What makes the difference.
What actually happened?
He gave several thousand people pagers and asked them to record, whenever one went off, what they were doing and how it felt. Hundreds of thousands of records produced a clear channel: when the challenge matches the skill, flow appears; too much challenge is anxiety, too little is boredom. The channel is narrow and it moves, since a skill that has grown makes the old difficulty dull. His definition: the best moments occur when a person voluntarily stretches body and mind to the limit to do something difficult and worthwhile. It also needs a clear goal and immediate feedback. Lose one and you fall out.
When the skill grows, the difficulty has to grow with it
Flow is not a property of certain activities. It is a relation between the activity and your current ability. So a thing that once absorbed you turns dull, and that is not interest dying, it is difficulty failing to keep up. The fix is to raise the load, not switch subjects.
Three years into a job and it feels pointless. Check first whether the difficulty has stayed flat, before changing industry.
The feedback cycle decides whether you can get in
Climbing, chess and playing an instrument carry immediate feedback, which is why they let people in easily. Writing a proposal or running a team gives feedback in weeks, which is why they rarely do. The workable move is to cut out smaller pieces that carry their own feedback.
Turn finish the report into get the argument in this one section to hold. You know on the spot whether it holds.
A clear goal is not a large goal
Flow asks that you know what to do now, not what you want from your life. This is where people get stuck: a grand aim makes the present blurrier. Narrow it to what this hour has to produce and the channel opens.
Change career this year gets you nowhere. Read these three cases today and write one sentence on each works.
How do I use it today?
Where you are: the same work absorbs you some days and is agony on others.
Ask first: is the current difficulty slightly above my ability or far below it? Is my goal for right now specific? Can I tell at any moment how I am doing?
Where it goes wrong: reading needs a challenge as pushing yourself far past your ability, which is anxiety, not flow.
Lines to keep
Enjoyment appears at the boundary between boredom and anxiety.
The best moments come when body and mind are stretched to the limit.
Clear goal, immediate feedback, matched difficulty. All three or none.
Same situation, other people are asking
Every day is the same and I don't know what it's for.I'm good at all of it and I don't know what I want.Do I have to leave this life to find the real one?What I do all day is the opposite of what I care about.None of it means anything · all 7 questions →If this one named what you are going through,
send it to someone who needs it, or keep it somewhere you will find it again.