How to Achieve the Flow State

A research-backed approach to getting "in the zone".

Reviewed by Hara Estroff Marano

Key points

• The flow state is a well-documented psychological phenomenon that you can cultivate with the right techniques.
• Regularly experiencing a flow state can be good for your mood, job satisfaction, and more.
• Maximizing the likelihood of flow state involves picking both the right task and the right environment.

Have you ever been so absorbed in an activity that time just seemed to melt away? When you’re deeply focused on a challenging task that you have enough skill to complete and the activity is rewarding for its own sake, you can enter a state that psychologists call the "flow state".

This isn’t just a rare moment of inspiration; getting into the flow state is a skill you can train, and its benefits may be substantial. For example, there is evidence suggesting that experiencing flow is correlated with positive mood, job satisfaction, emotional well-being and performance at work, to name a few.

We’ve taken a dive into the science of the flow state, and given you evidence-based tips on how you can achieve it more regularly.

What is the flow state?

The flow state is a psychological state, first described by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi in the 1970s, during which you are fully engaged in an activity, you lose track of time, and you feel a sense of effortless control. He deemed it an “optimal experience”.

You’ve probably experienced it before; studies have found that it is achievable in a very wide array of contexts, such as playing sport, dancing, working on a creative project, or solving a challenging problem at work, and beyond.

We’re going to present nine components as a framework to walk you through what the science says you can do to achieve the flow state more often.

Picking the right task

Some tasks are more prone to make you experience flow than others. Theory and empirical research indicate that you should focus on picking a task with the following components of flow:

1. Clear goals: You understand the task’s structure or instructions and know what you are trying to accomplish.

Clarity eliminates uncertainty, allowing you to direct all your attention toward the task without second-guessing what to do next. For example, when working on a coding project, the clear goal might be to create a specific feature or resolve a particular bug, rather than simply "improving the code" (which would be an unclear goal). You know exactly what needs to be done, and you can stay engaged with the task.

2. Immediate and unambiguous feedback: You have frequent (or constant) information about how far you are progressing and how well you are doing.

For example when playing a musical instrument, you can instantly hear whether a note is played correctly or not. This constant feedback keeps you fully immersed and motivated to improve as you play.

3. Challenge-skill-balance: The difficulty of the task is high but is balanced by your level of skill.

A balance between challenge and your current skill level helps you stay in flow. If a task is too easy for your skill level, you can easily become bored, which can lead to loss of focus. If a task is too hard for your skill level, you may become frustrated, get stressed out, or get stuck. The best challenges for maximizing flow are those in which there is neither the near certainty of success nor the near certainty of failure:

4. Autotelic experience: It is enjoyable and rewarding in itself, regardless of the outcome.

To find a task rewarding in this way (i.e., regardless of outcome) means that the task is providing you with one or more things that are intrinsic values for you, such learning, the expression of creativity, or simple pleasure. Studies have shown that people intrinsically value a wide range of things and that different people intrinsically value different things.

To determine whether a task is intrinsically valuable to you, consider whether you’d still be excited about completing it even if you gained nothing else from doing so (such as money or recognition from others, for example). This free, online Intrinsic Values Test can also help you to find out what you value at the deepest level.

Finding the right environment

Achieving flow isn’t just about the task itself, it’s also about where and how you work. The right environment can help minimize distractions, enhance focus, and create the mental clarity needed to fully immerse yourself in a task. Here are some tips on how to set the stage for optimal flow.

5. Concentration: You are concentrating on the task without distraction.

No matter how you break it down, flow state is characterized by being deeply focused on a task. It can help to ensure that your environment is free of things that might easily break your concentration.

Consider eliminating obvious distractions like your phone, notifications, or background noise, and creating a dedicated workspace where you can work uninterrupted for extended periods. Working with noise-canceling headphones or music without lyrics is also helpful for some people. Studies have found that things like lighting, air quality, temperature, and noise can have significant effects on performance, so reflect on what the ideal levels of those things are for you.

6. Loss of self-consciousness: You lose focus on yourself, no longer worrying about how you appear to others or about your abilities.

Anything that is likely to make you more aware of yourself can run counter to achieving a flow state. This can mean avoiding things like working in front of a mirror, or an audience, working in unfamiliar environments, and having to resist temptations.

7. Sense of control: You feel in control of your actions and you believe in your ability to navigate obstacles.

Researchers specializing in flow have speculated that “employees in a work context characterized by low autonomy are less likely to experience flow". They point to evidence such as a study finding that teachers reported more experience of flow state when they had a sufficient amount of autonomy in their job.

Some ways to introduce more autonomy in your role include negotiating more flexible working conditions, setting your own goals, and organizing your workflow in a way that suits you.

The result: flow state!

If you are able to put all of the above conditions in place, it will help you maximize your chances of entering the flow state. In that state, you will also be more likely to experience these experiential aspects of flow:

8. Merging of action and awareness: You are fully absorbed in the task, so that action feels automatic; you stop thinking consciously about the act itself (e.g., a musician not thinking about each individual note or how to move their fingers and instead just playing)

9. Time transformation: Your perception of time changes, which could mean slowing down, allowing you to experience every detail of the task with heightened awareness, or speeding up, whereby hours feel like minutes.

Those are the experiential components of flow state. Putting all this together, we get the following:

The key takeaway is that flow isn't some mystical experience; it's something you can cultivate deliberately by choosing the right tasks and creating an optimal environment.

So, the next time you're facing a task, set yourself up for flow—and enjoy the benefits of being in the zone!