Micro-learning: Finding Focus and Flow

These daily doses of micro-learning are all about finding more focus and flow in the everyday. They're about feeling more in control of what you're doing, learning simple tools and tactics for staying focussed — and getting more of the important stuff done.

The seductive concept of flow was coined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced Me-high Cheek-send-me-high), one of the founders of positive psychology. He saw flow as a learnable principle, and one that he researched deeply and practiced regularly.

Flow is a state of deep focus. It describes those moments when you’re completely absorbed in a task. When time flies. It's where difficulty meets do-ability, and distractions dissolve.

And in any conversation about what blocks flow, common themes emerge. Task-switching, jumping and juggling, alerts, competing demands and deciding what to prioritise. Environment plays its part too, as does technology — and as do other people.

But there are lots of tools, techniques and aspects of mindset available to us in the pursuit of greater focus, and that powerful feeling of being in flow. And we'll share them across this week of micro-learning, boiling them down into simple experiments that you can put to the test, stick with the best — and leave the rest.