Focus and Flow for the Insanely Interested
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“My name is Joshua, and I’m insanely interested in everything.” Judging from the responses to Seven Signs That You Might Be Insanely Interested in Everything, there are enough of us to form a support group. And with Jarkko talking about ways to “cope” with this condition, it might even be appropriate.
I have a feeling that if there were a support group for the Insanely Interested, it would have to deal with one problem above all: focus. How is it possible for someone who is insanely interested in everything to focus on just one thing?
If I were to have an evaluation, I would most likely register as ADD. Individuals with attention deficit disorder tend to be easily distracted, have difficulty keeping their mind on any one thing, and often get bored with a task before it’s completed. Sound familiar?
Yet despite this fact, my family’s biggest complaint was that I was too focused on something else to pay attention to what they were saying. It turns out that another common symptom of ADD is an inability to be distracted from something interesting.
For me at least, these times of being intensely engaged in an activity and free of distraction were experiences of flow.
What is Flow?
Flow is a concept popularized by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi in his book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Common characteristics of the flow state include…
- A distorted sense of time
- A sense of personal control over the situation or activity (often accompanied by objectively higher performance)
- The focus of awareness is narrowed down to the activity itself
- A sense of well-being
Fostering Flow
For the Insanely Interested, it is this focusing of awareness to a single activity that we are most interested in. What we want to do is shut out excess information so that we can concentrate on just one thing at a time. Fortunately, Csíkszentmihályi also lists a few characteristics of activities which are most likely to induce a flow state. They include…
- Clear goals
- Direct and immediate feedback
- Balance between the challenge of the activity and the participant’s skills
- Involvement of both mind and body (as in most sports)
One of the clearest examples of flow for me lies in coding websites. Because I am usually working from a completed design, I have a clear goal. The balance between challenge and skills mostly lies in the ability to hold all or most of the code in my mind at once. And as I work on the website, I constantly use the refresh button to gain feedback. The one element this lacks is involvement of the body beyond a basic level.
Using flow to maintain focus over the long term
So far, though, all of this is about maintaining focus at a task-level. How can we move beyond this to maintain focus on just one thing (or a few things) over longer periods of time? For me, the answer is still flow.
No, I can’t maintain flow for days at a time, but I find that once I have an activity which fosters the flow state, I keep returning to it again and again. Web design, writing, sketching… All of these are activities that continue to draw me back.
Over time, of course, I find other sources of flow, but whenever possible I try to synthesize them with previous interests. At the moment, web design and blogging has become a sort of “central hub” for my interests, because their broad nature can benefit from just about any sort of input.
What about you? How do you maintain focus and flow over time?
This was a guest post by Joshua Clanton, a web designer and blogger insanely interested in everything. On Tuesday, he will publish a set of productivity tips written in form of poetry. That’s something you don’t want to miss!
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11 Responses to “Focus and Flow for the Insanely Interested”
2 mentions in the press
- Joshua Clanton - Design for the WEB » Blog Archive » Link: Guest Post on Insanely Interested
- PIBlog » Blog Archive » On productivity, flow, and the “big block”
January 14th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
I wonder if this state of flow is easier to achieve for males than females? PErhaps it differs?
My wife seems to be aware of everything, which is probably good since we plan to have kids as soon as that works itself out. I mean she can be working on a document, having a conversation on IM, have the TV on and still hear me say something three rooms away and shout her advice without stopping what she is doing. On the other hand, now that I see it written, perhaps that is flow?
I get so focused on the task at hand that someone speaking directly to me will make no impact on my awareness at all. All that exists is my task. That can go on for hours, even days.
January 14th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Getting on the flow is not the problem but at least for me those flows are rather strong and short. I wonder how to regulate this so I could stay on the idea for longer time. It is easy to start experimenting with some new technologies, frameworks or ideas and then spend half a day with it. This leaves me exhausted and I do not have same interest anymore.
January 14th, 2008 at 8:58 pm
I’ve noticed recently while working on my Python web browser project that it’s much easier to work on parts of it which are well defined by W3C standards, since it gives me guidelines and direction — the clear goals mentioned above.
When I get into parts where the specifics are less well defined, I slow down and lose focus considerably, especially when the code I’m writing offers me no feedback.
I started writing the layout engine, and slowed down and lost focus. I still have half the classes and functions to write and I can’t see anything until they are all at least partially done.
I switched back to some nearly complete code where I can create test objects and access their attributes for a real web page. Working in that area I’m focused immediately.
Drawing out graphs and outlining the flow of code on paper, or a white board, really helps me to get focused.
One other thing that helps is to know that I have a big chunk of time to work on things. When I know that I only have a short period of time, it’s really hard to even bring myself to start working on it because I know that there will be an interruption.
January 14th, 2008 at 9:11 pm
@Shane: I suspect that ability to enter flow is more dictated by individual personality and background than it is by gender, per se.
It is quite possible that your wife is experiencing flow at those times. The list of characteristics I gave is somewhat fluid. For instance, heart surgeons who experience flow are intensely aware of the passage of time because that is part of the challenge of their task. Perhaps in the same way, your wife’s awareness doesn’t narrow to just her main task, but allows her to respond to multiple things without being distracted. Probably the only way to tell for sure would be to ask her about the other characteristics of flow.
I’ve never experienced a state of flow which lasts for days. However, I have experienced a few times where I would be able to enter the flow state extremely easily and would spend most of my time over a few days in that state.
@Pepez: I understand what you mean. A lot of the time after I leave flow, I am exhausted and don’t even want to look at anything related to my task again for a while. Typically, though, I find that this occurs because I have neglected to take care of my body during that time. For instance, being so busy working on a website that I don’t eat breakfast, lunch or supper, but survive off of Mountain Dew.
By the time I leave flow, I am (understandably) tired and a bit irritable. But on the occasions where I just force myself to leave my work for a bit of food, I end up feeling much more positive about the work and eager to return to it.
January 15th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
@Joshua: Thanks for the post! I love it. Next I’d love a follow up on how to foster flow when you have a baby in the house ;) Hmm…
I will write that one as soon as I find out the answer. Unless someone already knows how to do it and can share the secret with me.
@Paul: A browser in Python? That sounds like an interesting project. Now I just have to go to your site and look for more information on it.
January 15th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
@Paul: I know what you mean about not even wanting to start on some projects unless you’ve got a big block of time. I wrote about that not too long ago.
Planning things out on paper seems to help me as well. I’m not sure what it is, but sometimes the feel of pen and paper just helps me feel like I’m doing something more real than if I’m sitting in front of my computer all day.
@Jarkko: Thanks for inviting me. It was extremely cool to write for you and your readers!
I know a little something about flow when surrounded by babies/kids. I’m the oldest six siblings. :-)
January 15th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
That should read “oldest of six siblings.”
January 15th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
Hi Josh and Jarkko,
Great article, with some definite insight for us insanely interested in everything types.
Personally, I’ve learned to focus myself by using simple Pavlovian triggers. First, I find an activity (usually a bit productive) that I can easily get interested in and focus on. Once I have that activity, I set up specific environmental triggers (like music or location) that I then associate with the activity (and by extension, focus and interest).
Having built up the association in my mind, which seems to work despite my being aware of it, I can trigger myself into the “flow” using the right environment and the right triggers (classical music all the way).
Great article, thanks again,
- Mason
January 16th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
@Mason: That’s a great idea! I think I’ve been unconsciously using triggers like that, but I never really thought about trying to create the triggers. Instead I just relied on the ones that had accumulated naturally (like my fiction writing being easier in longhand while pacing in the outdoors).
February 1st, 2008 at 1:19 am
Very interesting. I think I was born to flow. Although like Pepez it is easier to maintain for short periods. I love to ingest new ideas and points of view. Then I need time to digest the new info. After that I loose interest for a few days, or even a month or so, then it will come back to me at a later time and I’ll again experience flow with that idea.
Maybe that’s just how the creative process works for me. So far it works, so I’ll go with it.
February 3rd, 2008 at 2:47 am
Shirley, that is often true of me as well. That’s one of the reasons that I use “central hubs.” That way, even if I’ve burnt out on one thing, there are several other things that I may be able to get into flow with.
Of course, the ultimate test is what works for you!