When I was in high school, our senior class took a ski trip to a local ski resort. Upon arrival, I made my way directly to the lodge to find a good seat to view the mountain and a warm cup of hot chocolate. I watched skier after skier descend from the peak; some of them made it to the bottom, some of them ended up cartwheeling down.
A friend of mine came over and asked why I didn’t ski and my response was simple: “I don’t see the point of calling something fun or physically exhausting when one is simply falling down a mountain.” I vowed that I wouldn’t ever go downhill skiing because it seemed pointless. I have to admit, the primary reason for not skiing was my tremendous fear of heights precluding the use of the chairlift, but to a high school kid, any excuse worked.
Over the past three months, my best friend at college convinced me to try out skiing. The first time I went was a small mountain in Ohio. The experience was incredible and we quickly upgraded our difficulty level to 12,000 feet on a Colorado ski slope.
Most people would chalk up the time skiing as fun and would say something to the effect of “I would go again.” I sat down and thought hard about my time skiing. Rarely have I found an opportunity when my mind was fully clear than when I was on the slopes. Why? Each cut of one’s skis requires careful planning to ensure that one does not turn too late and tumble the next couple feet (first learning experience). Furthermore, one must see where others before him/her have cut so that there is not a mountain of powder waiting for you to fall in upon your turn (second learning experience).
I wanted to think that my experience was that of achieving “flow” as defined by renowned psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. To be in a true state of “flow”, Csikszentmihalyi identified about 8 elements:
- There are clear goals
- Make it down the mountain
- There is immediate feedback
- Falling—I have felt feedback many times
- Balance between challenge and skill
- The faster the better
- Action and awareness are merged
- I am thinking of when to turn consciously; therefore, I my actions and awareness are not simultaneous or merged
- Mind is clear of distractions
- Described above
- There is no worry of failure
- I fear failure constantly down the mountain
- Self-consciousness disappears
- I am self-conscious of people around me in the highly populated areas
- The sense of time becomes distorted
- I lose track of time
I did not even achieve such a state of “flow”, which can be easily concluded from my failures of points 4, 6, and 7 above, but the experience was still overwhelmingly calming.
I encountered yet another “flow”-like state when working in graduate school. I would sit for hours in front of my computer endlessly chugging away at the data in front of me. I can get lost in the numbers, the process, the results, and ultimately, I forget to sleep.
After these two incidents of near “flow”, I wondered why I never experienced such a state before. My conclusion is that with our world being increasingly speed oriented, the ability for us to concentrate is becoming rarer; thus, we are unable to attain the level of focus necessary to achieve “flow”.
Taking “flow” to a more professional setting consider Cal Newport’s book Deep Work. Newport defines “Deep Work” as “professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit.” It is in this mindset that Newport attributes success of individuals like Bill Gates. In the book, there are four rules of “Deep Work:”
- Work Deeply: replace distraction with concentration. This idea is easier said than done
- Embrace Boredom: when life makes you pause, do not immediately flip to your smartphone as a source of distraction or rule number 1 will be challenging to implement
- Quite Social Media
- Drain the Shallows: try to avoid non-cognitively stimulating work at all cost as it can be a major detriment on your overall success
To achieve “Deep Work”, one must be apt to concentrate for long durations of time without interruption in a full concentration, “flow”-like state. Newport (and I) believes that this “Deep Work” is rarely obtained, which seems to be similar to the shortfall of “flow” achievement.
I can’t comprehend why our society seems to be lacking “flow,” but I realize that I fall into this trap of mind drifting, phone checking and lack of “flow” more often than I have ever wanted. Time Magazine published an article on May 14, 2015 titled “You Now Have a Shorter Attention Span Than a Goldfish.” This groundbreaking study by researchers in Canada found that the average attention span fell to 8 seconds, whereas a goldfish boasts an attention span of 9 seconds. Thus, maybe it is the goldfish’s superiority that precludes me from finding “flow” or maybe I am an outlier.
Is it the lack of attention that creates our inability to achieve “flow”? Is it the blue light emanating from my handheld screen at any time of day? Would a refocusing (no pun intended) of our work world help to improve our country, productivity, and/or happiness?
Thoughts?
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