You sit down to work and
you lose yourself in the task at hand. You feel alive and engaged. The concerns
of everyday life fall away as you immerse yourself in the work. You experience
a sense of progress and with a quick look at the clock you’re flabbergasted to
see hours have passed by seemingly unnoticed.
You were “in the zone”
or, as psychologists say: you were in flow.
Being in flow is connected to having greater job satisfaction and job
performance, a win-win scenario for you and your work. Flow is the sweet spot of
work between boredom and anxiety (see chart below). The goldilocks zone of not
too hard, but not too easy that keep us learning but without frustration.
When you find the perfect
balance between these two extremes, flow (and all of the happiness and
fulfillment along with it) comes naturally. But finding flow doesn’t happen
naturally, it takes a series of mindful adjustments to how we work.
Flow Issue #1: Too Little
Challenge
Boredom is the result of
having skills that far outweigh the present challenges. You can begin altering
boring tasks by finding ways to make them more challenging. By raising the
challenge you can bring higher levels of skill to the activity.
Optimize and gamify the
mundane tasks
If the task is too boring
or unchallenging, you can lament the easy task, or you can get it out of the
way as soon as possible so you can focus on the good stuff.
Make your hated task a
competition, you versus the clock. The goal becomes clearer, you know if you’re
successfully making progress, and you have something to shoot for. For example,
long distance runners fight apathy by always trying to beat their last time. In
the office, some pride themselves for getting to “inbox zero” as fast as
possible.
You don’t have to time
yourself at your desk, but there are probably things you can do to help you
master your task, or at least help you get it out of the way. Learn the
keyboard shortcuts. Find tools that streamline the task. Find inefficiencies in
your workflow and stomp them out. Now, it becomes something you’re using to
challenge yourself with the task itself as well as your problem solving skills
— and you’re finding flow where before there was only tedium. Remember
productivity is about living purposefully and getting to the things you enjoy
most.
Become an expert in the
task
Instead of staying at the
surface level of understanding, challenge yourself to become an expert in some
component of the task. Hate filling out redundant paperwork? Maybe you can
propose a more streamlined system to save yourself time and your company money.
Or better yet, you can learn to build it yourself. You can learn the ins and
outs of the software you use to complete unchallenging tasks and improve the
way you complete your work more quickly or with less effort. Not only are you
more likely to experience flow, but you may just develop some skills that make
you truly indispensable for your organization. Also, many entrepreneurs start
businesses after becoming frustrated with a process that should be smooth and
fast, but isn’t. Suddenly, your lack of a challenge can become an education in
the nuances of your craft.
You may just develop some
skills that make you truly indispensable for your organization.
Flow Issue #2: Too Much
Challenge
On the other hand,
anxiety is the result of too much challenge and not enough skill. A certain
amount of tension between skill and challenge is necessary to find flow and to
continue pushing your skills to improve. When the gap between challenge and
skill is too great you can’t experience flow.
Get help from a mentor
In a work environment,
the two quickest ways to reduce the challenge are getting a deadline extension
or accepting help from someone with greater skills in the specific domain
you’re dealing with. A quick email to a mentor, buying a coffee for a senior
member of the team, or flat out asking someone for advice about how to proceed;
your options for reducing the challenge of a task are numerous if you’re
willing to simply ask.
The benefits are two
fold: you get some outside perspective to help you and you build your network,
one of the most important things you can do for your career.
Acknowledge where you
lack skills and improve
Tip the skill/challenge
ratio away from anxiety by elevating your skills in the domain that’s causing
you problems. Identifying where you are falling short requires a bit of
self-reflection and honesty, and may even require the help of an honest friend.
Take the task holding you back and commit to focusing on it for thirty days.
Creating a habit of deliberate practice will help you break through the skill
barrier that’s causing anxiety. You aren’t going to be an expert after a month
of focused skill attainment but you’ll certainly be headed in the right
direction. It’s easy getting into a habit of helplessness, one where we feel
like we’ll just never be good enough. But in a world of free online courses,
meetups, and other free resources, you have a ton of control over finding and
learning the skills you need.
***
Experiencing flow at work
is probably one of the best signs that you enjoy your job. Elevating your
awareness of the skill/challenge ratio of your daily responsibilities allows
you to begin taking control over how much flow you experience on a daily basis.
Your job satisfaction is not the responsibility of others and it’s not
something that happens if you’re “lucky enough” to have the right kind of job —
it’s up to you.
Courtesy: www.99u.com
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