How to experience flow and how you can actually get into the flow state in order to enjoy your work. So you basically going to learn what is flow, how to experience it, how to focus intensively, which is one of the most important skills in this crazy technological world. And also, it's the prerequisites to enter the flow states. Also, we're going to learn to Pomodoro Technique with a few pro tips that can really help you even more in flow is the book that was written by me Hi chicks in me Hi. It was one of my favorite books ever. I took a lot of lessons from it, that are here inside of this class.

And I also give my personal experience on this because flow is something that can really improve our daily lives and can make our careers much more successful and also makes us happy You're in our workplace and it's very, very important to experience it every single day. So the flow state is when people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter. When you are in flow time flies by without you really noticing it, because you are enjoying the activity. You're so concentrated on on an activity that you can't worry or think about your problems. Most of us have experienced this in the past, but the key is to learn how you can experience flow every day, because this state makes us happy and it's a wonderful feeling to optimizing our lives in me Hi chicks in me Hi said this in his book.

So the flow experience like everything else, is not good in an absolute sense. It is good only in that it has the potential to make life more rich, intense. meaningful, it is good because it increases the strength and complexity of the self. So the author of the book, interviewed different people with different jobs in different salaries, and they were all able to experience flow, no matter what the activity was. Actually, the way you would approach a certain activity is more important than the activity itself. Because they actually actually found that people executing the same job in the factory at totally different experiences, because one of those people try to make their work more meaningful and challenging.

And the other one, just keep doing the work. And one of those people of course, you can predict which one it was was much more happier and satisfied with his career. So to be in flow, you must have clear goals. So before start practicing skill or working, make sure you know exactly what you want to accomplish. Don't leave space for randomness in boredom. If you want to start practicing guitar know exactly what you want to practice right now, if you want to practice a new chord, if you want to learn a new rhythm, know exactly what you want to do.

Especially try to get immediate feedback. Because when we receive feedback, while executing a task, we can experience flow much easily. So if you're playing guitar, the feedback comes from what you hear if it sounds good or not. Because if it sounds good, you're probably doing it right. If it sounds bad, you also know that you must keep practicing. And that doesn't mean that you can't be in the state of flow.

But you just have to continue practicing in gaining more skill. If you are programming. You can also execute the code and see if it runs or not. So it's very, very important to get feedback on the task you're doing. The concentration is usually possible because the task undertaken has clear goals and provides immediate feedback. This is also by the psychologist me Hi chicks in Mihai who study this topic of flow very, very in depth.

So this chart is very, very well known freak as of this book. And the author created two states and people actually talk about three states. I'm going to talk about the two of those. So Warden happens when you have a task. That is very, very low on challenge and your skills are high. So in this case, you must challenge yourself, you must have one more element that will make the task more difficult for you.

So let's say you've been practicing guitar For three months now, and you are starting to feel bored, so try to play a more difficult song, try to add another more rhythm, try to add something new to your practice sessions in order to elevate the challenge so it can actually meet your skill level. In this way you will be able to experience flow. What also can happen is when you feel anxiety when you feel overwhelmed, and this happens because your skill level is lower than the challenge. So you must increase your skill level by practicing more and more, or you can lower the challenge. If you just started learning how to program and you immediately expose yourself to advanced concepts, you'll probably feel anxious and overwhelmed. So in this case, you need to low the challenge of the task itself.

The flow state happens when there's a balance between your skill level in the challenge that the tasks That task provides. So here's what me Hi chicks and Mihai has to say about this. So the optimal state of inner experience is one in which there is order in consciousness. This happens when psychic energy or attention is invested in realistic goals, and when skills match the opportunities for action. The pursuit of a goal brings order in awareness because a person must concentrate attention on the task at hand, and momentarily forget everything else. And there is a story of an Indian tribe that were living in a rich place in Canada full of food resources and Lent.

And so they became very comfortable living there. So the elders every 25 years, would decide to move the entire population to a new place in order to find challenge. So they had new areas to explore a new thing. To figure out, so they moved from a comfortable place to a more challenging one. And that made all the tribe feel rejuvenated and actually healthy and more happy. So challenge is actually something that we must pursue, because it makes us happier.

It might be useful to breathe deeply before starting any task, because in order to feel in the state of flow, you must feel actually relaxed in peace of mind. Because when you experience flow, your thoughts and your actions are the same, which means that your mind is only focusing in the task you are executing. So a person can make himself happy or miserable, regardless of what is actually happening outside just by changing the contents of consciousness. So there's no problem in worry that can excuse you from experience the amazing feeling flow, you are the one deciding the importance of miserable or bad events in your life. And don't let those bad events control your life and not allow you to experience flow. In order to be in flow, you must be able to focus your mind in this certain task.

And disability of st focus requires practice. Actually, you must be able to ignore what's happening outside in order to experience the state of flow. The most important way to eliminate distractions is to put your phone away. And I mean very, very far away because we have an addiction with phones, myself included. So it's very, very important to stop checking our phones if we want to experience flow. Working in a peaceful place is also a very important step to be concentrated into experience flow If you can't put your headphones on with some classical music playing, you can find that on YouTube.

Or there's a very good site called focus at will, which have some amazing music to concentrate. Also no TV. Of course, I use the Pomodoro technique to make sure I can stay focused for periods of time. Most people start with 25 minutes, but I really believe that you can increase that time. If you feel that it's not that much for you. And if you can stay focused for way more than 25 minutes, so I usually I block 45 minutes to my own pomodoro sessions.

So first, you set a timer for 25 minutes and you focus on only one task during that period. Then you have a five minute break and you focus for more 25 minutes. And in the end, you can give yourself a reward if you really need to Because, for example, in my case, the reward for me is finishing a specific task or is to get in the state of flow is to be productive. For me, it's the outcome that makes me experience more joy. So it's totally depends on how you feel about it. Like I told you before, you can increase your focusing time.

And you can also write distracting thoughts that might come to your mind while you are trying to focus in a specific task. So let's say that you remember that you should call a friend or a colleague today, but you just forgot. So you just grab a piece of paper and you write that down. So you then can check it later. And that thought won't be kind of always on your mind during the period that you are executing the task at hand. I decided to include some activities that might put you in the flow state but this totally depends on you, really on your preferences on the skills you have on the things you like to do.

But here I've got writing, exercising, playing an instrument reading, practicing a new language coding, playing games surfing studying, having deep and interesting conversations to me Hi chicks in me Hi says it was found that the more often people report reading books, the more flow experiences they claim to have, while the opposite trend was found for watching television. So like you can see here is not watching television. So when you are watching television, you're not experiencing flow. So try to avoid that, or at least reduce the amount of time you spend watching television and start reading more books because it's actually a great way to experience more flow. I really, really hope that you try all of these tips with Your next activity and see if you can get into the flow state if you can't keep practicing because this actually improves with time just like anything else.

Thank you