Flow Chart (an optimal experience tool)

(photo by johnnyalive)

Before I describe how to make your own flow chart, let me first talk about why I wanted to make a tool for myself.

At work, when I’m stuck on a task that’s slightly more mundane than I would like, or if I’m on a task that’s just a little too difficult for me to wrap my little to-do list around, I would tend to neglect and neglect the the task until it absolutely HAD to be done. And if it absolutely HAS to be done, then I’m more likely to do it. When the task is/was over or underwhelming, my mind, body, and soul naturally decided that it wasn’t in my best interest to tackle it. Putting off tasks until they’re soo ripe (the last minute) that they’re almost rotton (late), isn’t a very nice feeling when you know you could have performed better if you had started and continued to do the task until it was finished in the first place.

This was a problem because, regardless of what the task was, if it was assigned to me, then that meant it needed to be completed one way or another. I write little journal snips in my evernote pretty frequently at work, and I found out that when things don’t go well at work (when I don’t feel I’ve performed my best at work) , it makes me feel anxious and nervous at the same time. This is because work provides the only income for my family and when work is in any kind of jeopardy, then that means my income is in jeopardy, which means my family and livelihood are also in jeopardy. I also noticed that when work is going well, then everything else feels like it’s going well too (even if it’s not). From all that, I determined that it’s in my best interest to 1) figure out a way to not rely on work (2nd source of income maybe) so much, and/or 2) keep work out of jeopardy. Aiming for item 2, I needed to figure out a way to consistently do my best. If, at the end of the day, I know I did my best, then how anyone else interprets my best is hardly of any consequence to how I feel about what I did. I also know that if I’m not doing something I want to do, I probably won’t be performing my best. Put all that together and I’m in dire need of a format that is enjoyable and lets me perform at my best.

Now, fast forward to today (or, a couple weeks ago actually). I think I’ve figured out a way to make those mundane or really difficult tasks not only do-able but enjoyable at the same time, thus presenting an opportunity to perform better than I would’ve previously.

A solution revealed itself to me shortly after I’d read the book of Flow – I discovered the book while reading this article. If you follow my twitter, you might’ve noticed a few brain dumps where I had some aha moments while I was working towards a solution.

(available on the cheap from amazon)

The book of flow states that “The optimal state of inner experience is one in which there is order in consciousness.”

I don’t want to derail this post into a book review too much so I’ll just say that the book is very good and I recommend it to anyone who is intrigued by the phrases on the cover. If you get excited when you read the text on the cover that says “The Psychology of Optimal Experience”, then that book is definitely a must read for you.

In a nutshell, being in flow is like being “in the zone” when you’re playing a sport or an instrument. It’s like when you get addicted to world of warcraft and don’t notice the time, and your life, flying right by you. It’s definitely one of those things which makes you feel awesome if what you were in flow doing has anything to do with your personal ambitions. You probably see the results of flow a lot in sports and competitions.

(photo by *Kicki*)

Now, what are the components of flow? Fortunately there are a few sites that talk about flow and other ideas related to it., and there’s even a wikipedia article (linked in the quote) which break the book down flow to a nice component view for us.

Components of flow

Csíkszentmihályi identifies the following nine factors as accompanying an experience of flow:[3][4]
1. Clear goals (expectations and rules are discernible and goals are attainable and align appropriately with one’s skill set and abilities). Moreover, the challenge level and skill level should both be high.[2]
2. Concentrating and focusing, a high degree of concentration on a limited field of attention (a person engaged in the activity will have the opportunity to focus and to delve deeply into it).
3. A loss of the feeling of self-consciousness, the merging of action and awareness.
4. Distorted sense of time, one’s subjective experience of time is altered.
5. Direct and immediate feedback (successes and failures in the course of the activity are apparent, so that behavior can be adjusted as needed).
6. Balance between ability level and challenge (the activity is neither too easy nor too difficult).
7. A sense of personal control over the situation or activity.
8. The activity is intrinsically rewarding, so there is an effortlessness of action.
9. People become absorbed in their activity, and focus of awareness is narrowed down to the activity itself, action awareness merging.
Not all are needed for flow to be experienced.

-Flow (psychology)

When I set out to create a tool which would help me reach flow on command, it was my aim to meet all the aforementioned “components” or criteria. I assumed that if I could meet all of those criteria then I would have created a useful tool which could help me achieve flow. And, since it’s a tool, I could pretty much use it whenever I felt the need.

To start out a flow chart, you must first write down exactly what your goal is. The goal needs to be something that is sufficiently challenging -that is, it’s something that you can accomplish but is neither too easy nor too difficult for your skill set. That satisfies components 1 and 6. Using the flow chart is intrinsically rewarding because you do have complete control over it. That satisfies 7 and 8. The flow chart provides as much feedback as you need – the feedback is the text you write on the paper, and you’re free to put whatever you want on there (I’ll describe this more later). That takes care of 5. After starting the flow chart, you’ll notice that you tend to forget all about the flow chart you had just started -at least this happens for the first few trials before you’ve adapted to the paper format as a tool. When this happens, you know it is working. You have a distorted sense of time, you lose the feeling of self-consciousness, you become completely absorbed in your activity, all because of your concentration and focus. That satisfies 2, 4, and 9. All the components of flow are satisfied.

Ok so how do you make a flow chart?

step 1. write down your goal/challenge – First identify the challenge (write it down), and determine whether or not you think you can achieve it with your skills. If you can, then go flow. If not, break it down into something that’s a challenge that you believe you have the skills to meet. It can’t be too easy and it can’t be too difficult.

step 2. write down and then DO the next task that’ll get you closer to completing your goal – This is pretty self explanatory. Just go along and do whatever it is which you set out to do. Of course, you might figure out that you set out to achieve something which is probably outside your skill set or just too daunting to handle, and in that case you would move on to step 3. If you completed your task, you would also move on to step 3.

step 3. repeat step 2 – If you got to step 3 because you felt stuck on a task that was too daunting for you, then in this step, you would typically cut out a small slice of the daunting task and tackle that. You could keep cutting it down until you get to a task that fits you better. If you got to step 3 because you completed and crossed out your previous task, then keep going. On to step 4.

Step 4. repeat step 2 again – keep going and going and … FLOW!

The purpose of this chart is to direct some flow into those tasks which are kind of difficult to start and to continue doing until you’re finished (like writing a research paper in college, or doing a science project in high school, or researching something in graduate school, or sitting behind an excel file at work, etc).

When you’re writing down the next task and the next task as you move along down your flow chart to achieve the challenge which you initially wrote down, you create a sort of backbone or compass for yourself. The flow chart would be to you what a long pole is to a tight rope walker.

” If the actual experience gets too far away from the Flow zone, the negative psychic entropy like anxiety and boredom will break player’s Flow experience. “ -Design Flow in Games

The flow chart puts some order and some direction to things so that your goals are clear and your focus is clear. Whenever you get to that point where you get side-tracked or thrown off your zone for a bit, the flow chart is right there for you to re-realize what your goal was, and from there you can adjust your next task to something that’ll bring you back into the flow zone. At any point in time you’re always and only focused on one single task. Here’s an example of a flow chart:

(click image for supersize)

This is so SIMPLE! It’s almost so simple that it seems kind of worthless to do, but before you start thinking in that direction, I’d recommend you try it out for yourself. I use this flow chart thing all the time at work. It definitely works for me, and I thought maybe, just maybe it would work for someone else.

Aside from the basic’s which I mentioned in steps 1-3, I also do these:

Set up a timer on my desktop. I press go and forget about the timer entirely until my flow session is broken. Once the flow is broken, I go back to see how long I’ve been in flow and I write down that number on the flow chart. This is beneficial to me because it lets me see how much time I burned and even challenge myself to beat my longest length of time.

Write down “incoming” distractions on the back of the paper, out of sight. I do this because I might think of something while I’m in the middle of flow, and if I give too much thought to that something, I’ll break my flow. Rather than break my flow, I’ll write down the idea on the back of the paper so that I can safely forget about it for now, until I’m finished doing what I’m doing.

Insert “flow breaks” in brackets if I get interrupted, so that I may resume where I left off. Sometimes I’ve gottah go to the bathroom, or have to run to get a printout, or have to go to the store. When these sorts of things happen, or when I’m interrupted from flow, I stop the timer and write in what interrupted me. Once I’m done with whatever that interruption was, I start the timer and go on to the next task!

Keep a flowstorm (brainstorm) space open for little doodles or writings related to the flow session. On my sheet of paper, I draw a line about 2/3rds down the page all the way across. Below the line I can scribble down anything that’s related to my challenge. It has to be on topic, if it’s not on topic it might break my flow.

Throw on the noise cancelling headphones. My headphones are basically a “do not disturb” sign for my coworkers. It’s harder to interrupt a person who has headphones on. And I think it’s pretty widely accepted that if a person has headphones on, they probably are focusing on something. Sometimes though, a coworker will have something important to tell me and they know they can just tap me on the shoulder. Even still, being broken from a flow session feels just like someone waking you up while you’re in the middle of an awesome dream; no matter how important it was for that person to wake you up, it’s still leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

I work at a desk and I typically am in front of a computer most of the time. I’ve tried to do the flow chart thing on the computer, but it really doesn’t size up to using paper as a flow chart for me. The paper format just feels much more simple, real, and makes me feel more accomplished. With paper, I get sort of a material trophy (the flow chart) to hang up on the wall. I get to look back at the paper and say “yeah, I did that … for 5 hours straight” and feel proud. This sort of feedback makes me feel very nice and I couldn’t manage to get that same feeling from a text file on the computer for whatever reason. I also get feedback from the number of tasks I’ve crossed out on the flow chart as well as the length of time that I was in flow. A smooth hour of flow is good on the soul.

Of course, mileage may vary so try it out in whatever style or format works best for you!

comments are open for this post. feel free to share your thoughts.

I Think You Can (experiment in progress)

Whenever I think about doing just one thing, I get the “oh no, I’ll miss out on something else” feeling. I get that feeling as if there isn’t enough time in the world, as if I need to hurry up and finish. A lot of bloggers love the concept of doing just one thing at a time, and I’m good with that and use that strategy often. But my angst is for a different oneitis.

There are other bloggers who believe on focusing on just one habit at a time. This, while it maybe a good idea for some, does not fit my desires and really doesn’t mesh with my thinking.  I think this idea is promoted so often because no one has came up with something similar to a [push button] method to change entire lives by modifying a bunch of habits at the same time. I think if a person can be thrown on an island and forced to change their lifestyle right then and there, then a person can also take a thought and on his own free will, trade in all of his old habits for new habits in a laid out, pragmatic way – the reason that I think this is possible is because with enough passion, there is no limit to the rate/speed at which you can change your life, and if you’re lacking passion, you can probably create it. You’re not limited to one habit a month. You could change your habits entirely today. You can change your entire life this evening.

I’m putting this idea to the test [again], but I wanted to keep you guys in the know. If I make it 28 days in any capacity, well … I’ll have beaten myself. I’ve wanted to do this for awhile, and have tried a couple of times before and failed. But, with newer ways to produce passion and newer ideas that yield better understanding, I have to try again. My #1 drive for doing this sort of thing is those almost great books. I’ve always wanted to complain directly to a few authors about their content. HAY, WHERE IS THE STEP-BY-STEP!? Maybe it’s because I’m used to having instructions when someone is trying to teach a new method? Yah know, the kinds that have steps? Whatever it is, it’s those books that drive me to really find out how to change a life in a push-button style.

It’s those books that say they’re going to help you CREATE AMAZING CHANGE IN YOUR LIFE RIGHT NOW that sort of get to me. A few years ago I’d buy into that, and waste hours reading the fluff in the bookstore. Years later I found out that I’m better off reading actual content on bloggers who read through and filter through all the fluff for me, picking out the gems of value, then posting about them on their free blog.

Have you ever gone to a book store looking for that book, thinking that it’s going to change your LIFE right now, like it promises, in an amazing and drastic way, and then it just really doesn’t hit the spot? There are a zillion books on the self-help shelf right now that do just that. Some of them are great, some of them are worthless, and some of them are in the middle. The problem is, they will change your mind, and get the ball rolling, but it doesn’t give me that bang bam pow amazing feeling that I’d like to get. I don’t get a step-by-step guide or anything. I get a lot of theorycrafting and thoughts about how I should change my perspective on life. While that’s all good and well, when it doesn’t tie into a practical application/activity/do-able, I’m left alone with no ambition and a bunch of bound paper.

So, what I’d like to do is eventually create a nicely formatted strategy with a step-by-step on how to change your life, right now. Hopefully all the theory crafting will be easily understood and perfectly mixed in with the step-by-step to help the person reading it understand the ideas best. My aim is to fill the gap that I’ve so often seen in “self-help” anything. This is one of my goals underneath my top level goal. But first, I have to pass my own test to see if the method holds any water. Don’t you love it when people eat their own words before feeding it to others? Heh.

In the end, I have the highest faith in our abilities as humans.

Science!? Talking To Rice

Recently I stumbled across the word “hado” while googling around and reading about positive thinking. According to Dr. Masaru Emoto, when he uses the word hado it means:

The intrinsic vibrational pattern at the atomic level in all matter. The smallest unit of energy. Its basis is the energy of human consciousness.

Hado, in Japanese basically means “wave”. Here’s a small article that explains hado a little further. And if you check out the hado website, you can read all about how Dr. Emoto does his experiments with water crystals.

This is not just any crystallized [sic] molecule of water however. What has put Dr. Emoto at the forefront of the Hado phenomenon is his proof that thoughts and feelings affect PHYSICAL reality. By producing different Hado through written and spoken words, as well as music and literally presenting it to the SAME water samples, the water appears to "change its expression".

After checking out the site, you’ll notice that Dr. Emoto has a deep focus on water, but don’t let that knock you. The idea of proving that thoughts, words, and sounds can change or influence matter is still intriguing; my favorite quote from the site is “thoughts and feelings affect PHYSICAL reality”. You’ve probably heard that before, but have you ever seen someone doing homebrew science experiments to prove it? This hado stuff has driven a lot of interest towards the whole scientific aspect of affirmations, positive thinking, intentions, and other related topics.

On the hado website you’ll see examples of a few cheap science experiments done just to see how thoughts and feelings can affect physical reality. But after reading all of the tidbits of information on the hado website, my attention keeps going back to the rice experiment that was mentioned here. This experiment involved saying “thank you” to one jar of rice and “you fool” to the other jar of rice. After a month of talking to rice, the results look like this:

Such results seem to imply that, for one reason or another, a harsh and negative comment just might turn your rice into a dark and gloomy pile of rot.

Regardless of whether or not this is complete nonsense, the best part about an experiment like that is that you can do it yourself, in your leisure, without any special equipment or anything. A couple of jars and some cooked rice? I’m sure a lot people can swing that.

If you’re looking for a stupid easy science project that’s kind of related to the whole positive thinking thing, this might be the experiment for you. If you surf around for “hado” on youtube, you can find a lot of videos of people doing their own rice experiments. Here’s one example: