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How to get into a flow state

Flow is the state of total absorption in a challenging task. What Csikszentmihalyi found, the conditions that make flow likely, and how to get there more often.

By Aryan Kumar · · 3 min read · Focus and deep work

A flow state is the feeling of being completely absorbed in what you're doing: time disappears, effort feels easy, and the work seems to pull you along. You can't switch it on at will, but you can make it far more likely. It comes when a clear, challenging task meets a mind with nothing else to deal with.

What flow is

The psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi coined the term after interviewing artists, athletes, surgeons and chess players about their best moments. Again and again they described the same experience: total concentration, a merging of action and awareness, a loss of self-consciousness, and a distorted sense of time. He described it in Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (1990), and found that people were often happiest not while relaxing but while deeply absorbed in something difficult.

The conditions for flow

  • A clear goal. You know what you're trying to do in the next few minutes, not just today.
  • Immediate feedback. You can tell straight away whether it's working: the code runs, the sentence reads well, the shot goes in.
  • The right level of challenge. Hard enough to need all your skill, not so hard that it's hopeless. Too easy and you get bored; too hard and you get anxious. Flow sits in the channel between.
  • No interruptions. Flow takes time to reach and seconds to lose.

How to get into flow more often

  1. Protect a long block. Many people say it takes a quarter of an hour or more to settle into deep focus, so a 25-minute session leaves little time in flow. Try 60 to 90 minutes with the deep work timer.
  2. Make the next step obvious. End each session by writing down exactly what comes next, so the next one starts with doing rather than deciding.
  3. Adjust the difficulty. Bored? Add a constraint: do it faster, do it without notes, solve the general case. Overwhelmed? Break the task into a smaller piece you can see how to do.
  4. Kill every interruption in advance. Notifications off, phone away, a message to your team that you're offline until noon.
  5. Use a starting ritual. The same music, the same drink, the same brown noise. Over time the ritual itself cues focus.
  6. Do it at your peak. Flow is easier when you're alert; the chronotype quiz suggests when that is.

What breaks flow

Interruptions are the obvious one: a single message can end a state that took twenty minutes to build. Less obvious is switching by choice: a quick look at email “while it compiles”. Each is an exit, and the way back in is slow. Our post on the cost of context switching has the research.

Fatigue breaks it too. Flow feels effortless, but it uses real energy, and after two or three long sessions most people are done for the day. That's not a failure. Stop, rest, and come back tomorrow.

Flow at 35,000 feet

Planes are good at producing flow, for all the reasons above: a clear end, no interruptions, nothing else to do. Flight brings that to your desk. Pick a destination as far away as your block is long, and focus until you land.

Questions

What does a flow state feel like?

Total absorption: you lose track of time, stop noticing yourself, and the work feels effortless even when it's hard. People often describe it as being 'in the zone'. Afterwards, hours seem to have passed in minutes.

How long does it take to get into flow?

There's no exact figure, but many people find it takes 15 minutes or more of uninterrupted work on a challenging task. That's one reason long, protected blocks of 60 to 90 minutes make flow far more likely than short sessions.

Can you get into flow on boring tasks?

Sometimes, by raising the challenge: set a time limit, aim for zero errors, or find a better way to do it. Flow needs a balance between challenge and skill; a task that's too easy produces boredom instead.

Who discovered flow?

The psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who studied it from the 1970s onwards and described it in his 1990 book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience.

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