There is a six-step breakdown of 'the flow' or 'zone' from it's creator Mihály Csíkszentmihályi
- Intense and focused concentration on the present moment
- Merging of action and awareness
- A loss of reflective self-consciousness
- A sense of personal control or agency over the situation or activity
- A distortion of temporal experience
- Experience of the activity as intrinsically rewarding, also referred to as autotelic experience
Which can be found from his website
There's also a photo available that denotes when flow would be considered achieved. (Upper Right)
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
For even easier understanding, an example of the six steps in order from my personal life,
- When implementing or working on a new project in Excel/VBA (Work I'm very comfortable with) I usually start with music to block out distractions and assist in focusing.
- As my process moves on I'm no longer able to hear the music, though it's still on. My brain is queuing next lines of code to test and my fingers are an output.
- I'm less focused on mistakes, mishaps, meetings, or just general things on my plate. My only issue is my task-at-hand
- I am the author and implementation. The code is mine. It's finished when I am.
- In deep focus, a day that started at 9am and feels like may be 10am is actually closer to 1pm... and I should eat.
- Every proper step IS rewarding, I'm challenging myself with a problem and completing work.
