Henry Hagnäs

Book review: Finding Flow

I like the idea of self-help/self-improvement books, some would argue because I need help but I'd like to think of it as improving myself :)

The problem with this subject is that there are as many opinions as there are people, lots of books are written by "gurus" that really have no business trying to tell people how to live their lives, some are even detrimental in that they build up false hopes and dreams that can, and will, be shattered before long. Basically you should avoid books that promise things to be easy or sounds too good to be true. Try figuring out if they are based on actual science and if the person writing has any credentials in psychology or a related field. Just being a successful human being doesn't translate into being a good teacher of how to be human so avoid reading books by celebrities that want to tell you their secret (or read them as autobiographies to see how one person did it, don't try to copy them).

"Finding Flow - The Psychology if Engagement with Everyday Life" by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is one of the ones based on real research and years and years of experience. Dr. Csikszentmihalyi has written many books and hundreds of articles about psychology and is a leading researcher on positive psychology as well as the main proponent for the concept of "flow" which is described in this book.

Flow is the state when a person is fully concentrated and focused on a task that is challenging but manageable. According to Dr. Csikszentmihalyi its one of the most positive and rewarding states to be in but surprisingly hard to reach. According to his and his colleagues research not everyone experiences flow-state very often, or ever.

The book is a short and easy read in around 160 pages (with some tens of pages with notes and source-material). It contains different insights about how we reach flow and what we can do to enter flow-state but it's not an easy how-to book. You need to digest the material and compare it to your own life and make changes in your life and ways of thinking to be able to use these insights in your day to day life. Reading books like this can make you mindful of what you can do and think differently about and can be useful pointers if you want to improve your life quality.

What the book brought to be was a reminder of how important (and fun) it is to enter flow and made me think about ways to add more flow-moments to my life. While I do have these moments at times, when running, reading, writing and programming I could try to master more of my skills to a level where I feel in control and have more personal (and professional) projects that have clear and attainable goals that are easy to get into and work on. Creating time and space where you can concentrate fully on the task is also important so less twitter & Facebook, more single-tasking! I'll also probably re-read this book a month or two from now too because it feels like one of those books that have more to give than can be gleaned from just one reading.

Happily recommending this for most of my peers, I think we all enjoy flow-states both personally and professionally even if we don't know what to call it and being more mindful and controlled about it can only be a good thing!