How to Enjoy Writing: Get into Flow

Estimated Time: 30 minutes

What is Flow?

Getting into Flow

As mentioned in the video, several psychological factors can drive you into flow. These include:

  1. Clear goals.

  2. Feedback on how you are progressing towards those goals.

  3. Focus on the task at hand. You need to avoid distractions when trying to get into flow.

  4. An appropriate balance between skill level and the level of the challenge. This allows you to avoid:

    1. Anxiety. i.e. when the challenge level is significantly above your skill level.
    2. Boredom. i.e. when your skill level is significantly above the challenge level.

    Finding the right balance will leave you feeling engaged but not overwhelmed.

📺 Watch the following video on triggering flow.

What Occurs When You are in Flow?

When you are in a flow state, you will feel deep enjoyment of the task, and the following will also occur:

  • Loss of self-consciousness: You stop worrying about how you are, or will be, perceived by others.
  • Complete absorption in the task at hand: You aren't thinking about the past or future, but are instead entirely focused on what you are doing at the present moment.
  • Sense of automatic control: You feel like you can do precisely what you want to do.
  • Altered sense of time: You feel like time speeds up or slows down.
  • Presence of intrinsic motivation: You don't need external rewards to do the task. You are doing it because it is rewarding for its own sake.

Getting into Flow When Writing

If we look at the four conditions that can help you get into flow, we can see that the writing process helps create the conditions for 3 of the 4 of these factors to occur.

  1. Clear goals → The Planning step allows you to create a clear goal for your writing.
  2. Focus → By separating Drafting (i.e. text creation) into a distinct step, you can focus on it without the distractions of planning or critiquing your work.
  3. Feedback → The Revising step will allow you to review your writing and give yourself feedback on how well it achieves your goal.

Writing more, especially in diverse and increasingly challenging circumstances, can help you achieve the 4th condition (i.e. finding the appropriate balance between skill level and challenge level).

Discuss: Experiences of Flow

References

Davis, Kenneth. (2010). The McGraw-Hill 36-Hour Course: Business Writing and Communication, Second Edition. McGraw Hill.

Flow Center. What is Flow?