Kevin Vogelsang

During my final semester at MIT, I sat in on a class called Toy Product Design. I didn’t ever register for the course, as I was busy getting together my current business venture, but the instructor, Barry Kudrowitz, covered some very interesting topics in the lectures I attended.The first few weeks of the course were essentially a quick survey of play, art, the design process, and fabrication.

One incredibly powerful concept that came up is the concept of Flow. Flow is similar to what we commonly refer to as “being in the zone.”  Here’s the Wikipedia definition:

Flow is the mental state of operation in which the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing by a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity.

The key characterization of entering the state of Flow is when the individual’s high level of skill is met with a high level of challenge. The

task is just difficult enough that if the individual focuses and gets down it, they’re able to rise to the challenge.  It’s hard, but not too hard.

I tend to think of this state characterizing when the individual is aware of the difficulty of the task, but it is still nonetheless able to exert influence over the outcome.  This provides the gratification of accomplishment plus the feeling of power.

When I first encountered this concept in Toy Product Design, the context was the role that Flow plays in an individual’s enjoyment and fun in an activity (specifically, a child playing).  It was clear to me that this concept had incredible relevance to the way we work as well, but when placed in the context of fun, Flow seemed all the more powerful.  It not only describes the state in which we perform best, but also the state in which we have feelings of enjoyment.  (This also explains why video games are so addicting: they are able to be quickly adjusted to our skill level.)

Csíkszentmihályi, who first proposed the concept, even goes so far to say that this state evokes feelings of what he calls ecstasy.  In writing this essay, I came across a talk he did at the TED conference.  You can follow the link or watch it right here on the post.  (Upon writing this essay, I also realized just how relevant this concept is to what I described in The Equation of Performance.)

I’m trying to keep this short, but another interesting thing he mentions is that the human brain is only able to process a certain amount of information at a time.  In the state of Flow, the brain’s resources are completely diverted to the task.  Our consciousness is completely consumed by the activity, and we are no longer aware of our physical self.  We simply don’t have the resources to do so.  This perspective is particularly interesting as it seems to illustrate that when our brains are spread thin, it’s difficult to experience a state of happiness.

Kevin
6.12.2009