Flow For Dummies Cheat Sheet

You might remember what it feels like to be in flow – perhaps from your childhood, perhaps from some random Saturday morning reading session, last winter’s ski slopes, or a night on the dance floor. But you can’t quite seem to find your way back there again. If you turn to artists, sports people and others who experience flow regularly for help, they usually can’t really pinpoint what it is that they do which tips their mind into flow. This cheat sheet is here to give you a birds-eye overview of the science about where to start and what to focus on if you want to reverse-engineer flow.

Prioritizing flow

It can be difficult to prioritize your flow practice with all the stresses and distractions in life. Remember your flow practice is a space where perfection is not the goal, but play is.  

Here are some ways to start:

• Make mistakes, laugh, mix and match at your hearts content.
• Avoid the social gaze and judgment by shielding your practice with boundaries and by ruling that what others think as irrelevant on your pathway to flow.  
• Lean into what gave you flow in the past, while also trying new things.  
• Browse crafts and hobby shops, sports and performative arts communities and get ready to broaden your horizon about flowable activities.  

And off you go, flow.

What are the basics of flow ?

There are basics to flow that no one tells you about. That’s because most advice focuses on a possible result of flow: productivity. Yet, the mere fact of focusing on an external reward like productivity, prevents flow. The key is to focus on flow, and let possible gains like productivity, health or mastery happen, if they do, and not to worry if they don’t at first. Here are a few things you should know about flow and how to reverse-engineer it:

• Your body and brain are connected: Via the spinal cord (which you can detect as the bony bit at the back of your neck), long ganglia (nerve cells) run down into the body and connect the systems of your brain with the organs, glands and muscles of your body. Information flows, back and forth. You can nurture this connection for flow, by choosing actions with your body that set the settings for flow in your brain.  
• You may be naturally flow-prone, or not: Some people tap into flow more easily than others. But this doesn’t mean that you can’t. The key is to create a pathway to flow that suits your nervous system, by discovering your personality traits, your imagery vividness, and your emotional reactions to different actions and objects.  
• Beware of the myth of the genius enthralled in flow: Flow is for everyone. It all depends on crafting your very own flow altar with the right cues that trigger associations in your brain so your mind generates flow.
• Familiarize yourself with the ten Elements of Flow: The father of flow research, Professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, described 10 elements that describe perfectly what flow feels like. Knowing what they are won’t make you tap into flow, but help you notice when you’ve reached healthy flow.  
• Implement flow-triggering behaviors into your life: Scientific research suggests that there are eight behaviors that guide your brain to flow and three mindsets that prevent it. If you include the eight behaviors in your daily life – and avoid the three mindsets – you’re en route to the zone.  

10 flow activities to consider (that maybe you haven’t)

Perhaps you need something new in your life. Your mind has gone stale, and you want something that can rejuvenate you. You crave something that can get you out of your mind and back into your body, something that can give you flow.

Here are some surprising flow-bringing activities that you might not think of trying. They all offer opportunities to find the ten Flow Elements which make you feel flow, and provide you opportunity to follow the eight Guiding Stars of Flow, eight behaviors that help you tap into flow.

Juggling

Juggling (an activity in which you continuously toss into the air and catch a number of objects, keeping at least one in the air at all times) is a very multimodal activity, meaning that you need a lot of yourself to stay tuned, otherwise it all tumbles to the floor (both literally and figuratively!). For this and other reasons, juggling makes for a great flow activity:

• It absorbs your mind and involves a lot of movement — specifically, repetitive movements.
• You can join a community of like-minded jugglers and together improve your technique, perhaps even expressing yourself through the types and colors of objects that you juggle.
• When it works or you see others’ success, you feel wonderful aesthetic emotions such as awe and challenge, absorbing you into continuing your routine.
• In juggling, you have your intention super clearly spelled out — catch that thing and throw the other. Over and over again. A true washing machine for your mind.

Learning a language

Many people find the idea that learning a new language can give you flow surprising, often because of bad experiences during their school days. Most educational systems structure language learning around memorizing words. Quite some scientific evidence shows that this approach doesn’t make you learn that language; instead, it just makes the whole experience really frustrating because a language is more than its words. How you approach the language learning determines whether it can give you flow — but it certainly can!

Having adventures in nature

Being in nature calms humans’ nervous system like few other activities do. Check out the book The Hidden Life of Trees, by Peter Wohlleben (Greystone Books), to discover the science behind nature’s calming effect. Many people find flow in nature. Throughout this book, I recommend that you take a 30-minute walk in nature every day, not only to get your body moving, but to experience the calming effect of nature.

You can find many hobbies that take you into nature and can lead to flow, such as hiking, birdwatching, photography, stargazing (which you can read about in the section “Stargazing”), gardening, long-distance cycling, rock climbing, or fishing.

And any nature-flow adventure involves steps of planning the journey, which can give you superb flow too. Perhaps you plan a 5-day bicycle road trip with a group of friends and you research maps and guidebooks for

• the clothes and any special gear you’ll need, including repair tools, etc
• the best route, including distances per day
• the best places for refreshment stops
• possible surprises for your friends, like a special landmark (a castle?), a hidden pastry shop, or a particularly stunning view
• the hostels you’ll stay at, their costs, and pros and cons – to be prepared
• astonishing historical facts about the places you’ll drive through to discuss in the evenings over dinner
• games, traditions, foods and other experiences you can cherish together in the places you pass

All of this planning feels like a chore to many people, but is an exquisite flow opportunity for nature adventurers. For inspiration, check out books and online resources like community sites, local information sites, and travel guides with recommendations of adventurers who’ve been there before you. It’s all waiting for you around the next corner!  

Engaging in crafts

A one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work for many of us. Expression can happen in many ways, as long as you express into the real world and not via some artificial medium such as social media or AI. The act of creating with your own hands can bring you real, healthy flow. Although craft hobbies such as knitting or scrapbooking probably immediately come to mind, you can find surprising, non-mainstream crafts to find your flow. You can

• Make tiny apartments for ladybugs by using matchboxes.
• Create wax art by melting candles onto a canvas.
• Take up painting miniature figurines from fantasy novels or role playing games.
• How about gluing sparkly rhinestones onto porcelain cups or drawing on them with porcelain paint?

You can find a whole fan community out there waiting for you to join them, whichever craft you choose.

Cleaning and organizing

One flow opportunity that many people forget involves cleaning and organizing your home, space, or desk. Cleaning and tidying up actually incorporates many of the behaviors that help a human brain tap into flow:

• It involves movement, repetitive routines, and possible social connection (such as when you decide to craft a cleaning habit with a loved one).
• You can get better at it, so it offers you learning opportunities, which your brain loves.
• Using your imagination, you can come up with new ways of organizing your space in a way that represents you best, that expresses who you really are.
• A well-curated space can elicit special emotions like wonder and even awe, when you return home and it smells nice and looks nice — aesthetic emotions that can act as portals to flow.

Often, you don’t have the opportunity to set a clear intention in your life and see it met relatively quickly. Well, with cleaning and organizing, you always have a very clear intention, and you receive reliable feedback (usually visual) about how that’s going. These factors can make this activity very rewarding and flow-inducing.  

Dabbling in history

Studying history has many facets for a flow practice. You don’t just read historical facts in books. You can put plenty more elements together to create a history-based flow activity:

• Go to museums and assemble the facts about a specific time period in history, visit libraries that offer books and documents related to that period. (And you can get the movement your brain needs for flow from going for a walk while you listen to that history podcast!)
• Watch documentaries — perhaps together with a group of people also interested in the same time periods.
• Take trips to where the events in history took place, do some genealogy research about the individuals involved, reveal what people ate (recreate old recipes!).
• Create a model of the landscape or setting of historical events by using figurines or papier-mâché. Collect historical artifacts (or recreate them with crafts), such as coins, tools, and garments.
• Join historical-reenactment clubs, in which people role-play historical figures and episodes; join a historical-fiction writing club; or contribute to podcasts about your topic.
• You can even contact libraries and museums and offer to work as a volunteer, transcribing old documents. For example: https://transcription.si.edu.

Exploring sex, love, tantra

Ever since humans have documented their pursuits, they’ve considered love-making an art. In ancient Greek mythology, the muse Erato creates erotic poetry to describe and heighten the experience during the act. Ancient Indian scriptures describe the art of Tantra — positions and mindsets to follow for a wonderful experience. If you’re not after the quick gratification (as little Greek God Dionysius would be) — which can make you addicted to sex — you may seek to develop a flow hobby with your loved one based around love-making. It unites all eight Guiding Stars of Flow, and you can easily avoid the Gods of Mind-Hooking.

Telling jokes

You find flow by making up and telling jokes yourself, or by engaging in the giggles over someone else’s punch lines. Let Thalia – the Greek muse of comedy and idyllic comedy – take you away from the here and now.  

Writing comedy and performing standup comedy gives you the opportunity to flow because it unites all the Elements of Flow. In the BBC article “Comedy on ‘prescription’: Why performing stand-up is good for your health” (www.bbc.com/future/article/20251212-comedy-on-prescription-why-stand-up-is-good-for-your-health), by Julia Hotz, you can discover some surprising science behind why comedy can make all the difference to your life. Be sure, however, to do this type of disclosure in a safe space. Staying safe and out of reach of the judgment of others is important for flow.

You can go to comedy classes and figure out how to spin hardship or social observation into jokes, which can give you a sense of accomplishment and community. Or, you can watch stand-up comedians do their thing, maybe even asking them for advice in relation to your own bits.

Listening to jokes does something – funny – to our brain (pun intended). At first, there is confusion. Your brain feels a contradiction in the information provided (between ‘the setup’ and the ‘punchline’). The temporal poles (the bit of brain close to your temples) spins into action informing other parts of the brain that there is an inconsistency. Other parts of your brain like the prefrontal cortex (behind your front) spin the information to resolve this. Then follows the ‘aha’-moment when the realization strikes, which loops in the reward system, both the basic and the more-meaning making portions of it. As you throw your head back, laughing, the reward system injects loads of positive affect into your mind space, nudging your mind toward flow.  

To get flow-inducing laughs, you can join a stand-up comedian in a dirty bar. Or watch them online. Fancy a binge-watch-worthy series? Check out The Marvellous Mrs Maisel for the wonderfully funny story of a female stand-up comedian making it in the man-dominated stand-up scene of New York in the 1950s. Want to know the story behind a professional comedian, a writer of shows like those of The Marvellous Mrs Maisel? How do they come up with the punch lines? Perhaps check out the work of Canadian writer and comedian Monica Heisey or of US-American writer and comedian Elon Gold.  

Stargazing

Astronomy is a wonderful hobby that you can pursue in many ways:

• Making observations ranging from simple stargazing so that you can start to identify the constellations and clusters to advanced astrophotography that requires complex gear.
• Joining groups that help astronomers with research as a member of citizen science teams. Check out Zooniverse (www.zooniverse.org) for ways to offer assistance.
• Organizing or joining star parties where you can find like-minded people and share insights about the stars.

Horseback riding

A horse-related hobby can very likely give you all eight flow-triggering behaviors, as well as the ten Flow Elements:

• Horseback riding is, in many cases, an aerobic exercise; and you share your time with another mammal (the horse), as well as perhaps other like-minded people.
• This hobby offers plenty of opportunities to submerge your mind into routines and rituals that you go through each time, and the riding itself involves repetitive movements, soothing your mind and crafting mastery in your memory systems.
• Every day is different. Your body is different, the horse is different. You are alert, focused, adapting, learning, and expanding with every practice session. You have a never-ending technique practice – this helps you maintain the skills-challenge balance – and it’s never boring.
• Even just being with a horse can inspire aesthetic emotions, such as awe, joy, and wonder, as can the experiences you have together, for instance, overcoming a hurdle or seeing a particularly beautiful sight on a road trip.
• When you work with your horse, you usually have pretty clear, short-term goals that you set your intention to.  

The dos and don’ts of flow

As with anything, there are dos and don’ts for the best possible experience. For flow it’s the following:

Dos

‍Focus on the here and now, and your doing in this very present moment. Lose yourself in it, cherish the action itself, not the outcome. Aspire to collect the 10 Elements of Flow with your practice, by aiming to have the eight flow-triggering behaviors (I call them the eight “Guiding Stars of Flow” in the book) in your everyday life.

Don’ts

‍Manage the mindsets that prevent flow in your life:

• Don’t let your mind get hooked: Beware of the strong neurochemical reactions triggered by these three mindsets when you are pursuing flow (I call them “Mind-Hooks” in the book): competitiveness, pleasure chasing, sensation seeking and drama. Check where they belong in your life and where they don’t.
• Don’t allow distracting cues: Pinpoint your distraction cues as much as your flow-triggers. Mandate them to each their part of your life. Dodge the hooks that the distraction cues represent.  
• Don’t lose faith: Difficult life situations like illness, immigration, caring responsibilities, repression and mental health challenges (like depression, anxiety, ADHD, Autism, etc.) command their own mind hooks. Take back control by following practical strategies that enable flow despite complicated life circumstances.

Tips from ancient flow practices

Take a look at the magnitude of these numbers: Our species, homo sapiens, is about 300,000 years old. While started using writing from about 3500 BC, it has only recorded historical happenings roughly since about 300 to 500 AD. The elk-teeth of the Yuzhniy Oleniy Ostrov burial site are from 6520 AD (they’re 8,200 years old).  

Prehistoric arts and crafts

The archaeological record contains rich evidence that suggests that prehistoric humans engaged in creative, flow-inducing activities, from around 50,000 years ago on. Some archeologists and cognitive scientists theorize that a cognitive revolution, a slight change in our cognitive machinery, happened 50,000 years ago. However, it’s also possible that modern archaeologists haven’t yet found older artistic remains or that those remains have been destroyed. These forms of art have been around for a very long time, and perhaps, as long as humanity:

• Musical instruments: Bone flutes — or, at least, bones that emit a sound like a flute if you blow into them — date back to 35,000 to 45,000 years ago.
• Abstract art: You may think that abstract painting dates back to the early 1900s, but the real first (that we know of), however, is 73,000 years old and located in the Blombos Cave in South Africa.
• Painting: All over the world, cave paintings describe about three motifs that prehistoric people created: family, hunting, and dancing scenes. If they took the time to paint them on walls, these activities must have occupied ancient people’s minds.
• Jewelry: At an archaeological site called Taforalt, in Morocco, 82,000-year-old seashells show signs of having been perforated and put on strings like beads. And these ancient shell beads were colored with ochre.
• Ornamentation: Human societies seem to have always engaged in many creative forms of ornamentation, such as body art (makeup, tattoos, jewelry, and so on), decorative garments (clothes made in ways that go beyond their functionality), knitting, stitching, painting, drawing, wood carving, pottery, weaponry, and so on.

Prehistoric rituals and traditions

Ethnographic and anthropological work suggests that humans all over the world have traditions going far back in time that unite the ten elements of flow. These traditions often involve a long list of elements that trigger flow in human minds:

• Rituals, altars, and focus points for senses, such as corner stones, Drishti, prayer beads, and other symbols such as crosses, statues, and figurines, on which people can focus their attention – alone or in a group.
• Rhythmic movements, sequences of movements on repeat, and even whole choreographies of movements (for example, Sufi dervishes swirling or prayer movement sequences), aided by musical instruments, such as drums, flutes and rattle instruments. Rhythm is all-encompassing to the human brain and helps with tapping into flow – alone or in a group.

These activities all can trigger flow. But you can’t always identify a clear boundary between an activity that’s a creative pursuit and one that’s a functional behavior that produces a tool. However, you can look at the objects, behaviors, and traditions from the past, and simply ask yourself whether you can find use in it today.