Flow Characteristic #4: Focus on the Task at Hand
Hypervision, not tunnel vision
[Photo credit: Judith Glick-Smith]
Focusing on the task at hand is characterized by a sense of clarity and purpose. You have a clear understanding of what needs to be done and how to accomplish it. You can channel your mental energy efficiently toward reaching your goals. You remain open to feedback and responsive to changes. You adjust strategies and tactics as needed to maintain the flow-state. This flexibility fuels exploration, creativity, and innovation by constructing a dynamic interaction between the individual and the task itself.
In describing this characteristic of flow in his book Flow: The psychology of optimal experience, Csikszentimihalyi wrote that flow enables and is enabled by living in the present where “only a very select range of information can be allowed into awareness.”
When you focus on the task at hand, concerns outside the scope of the flow activity fall away. Your attention is laser-like and effortless on what you want to accomplish. This intensity is not strained or forced but comes naturally out of alignment with your purpose, goals, skills, and the challenges embedded in the activity. You become one with the activity.
Firefighter Joel Kanasky of FDNY, Rescue 1, told me the following story about an incident he responded to where there were quite a few firefighters trapped in a building collapse:
One of the guys that I dug out, put in the Stokes basket, and got out of the building was a dear friend for around 18 years. I didn’t know it was him until the next day. I never knew it. I had no idea. Sometimes, I tell myself, when I’m playing the game, I don’t pay attention to the things around me, except for the game.
When the captain and I crawled to him, he was buried from the waist down. He kept telling me over and over his leg was on fire. We kept telling him, “We’re going to get you out.” We kept digging, digging, digging. We got him out, got him in the Stokes basket, sent him on his way, and I never realized it was my dear friend.
He lived, but he’s off the job because he was burned so badly. I never had a clue it was him. I never talked to him about it. I knew it was him afterwards, when I visited him at the burn center. But I never talked about the incident with him.
Two years later, we were in Alexandria doing a seminar. He was giving a lecture and I was giving another. In one of the lectures, at the end, he talked about the collapse and how it changed his life because of being trapped for that moment. He kept talking about this guy who kept yelling at him to shut up and who put the webbing underneath him. He said he never knew who it was. But it was actually me who was yelling at him to shut up and who put the webbing underneath him. He didn’t know.
He hadn’t tuned into me at all and I hadn’t tuned into him. It was amazing that two years had passed before we actually had a beer over it and talked about it.
All the while, you must remain aware of surroundings and the dynamics of the situation and continue to solicit feedback to make appropriate decisions. Training and experience facilitate the ability to focus. However, you can experience flow at any level of expertise if you are challenged in the moment.
Situational awareness enables you to be deliberate about what is extraneous to the task. Focusing on the task at hand is a form of hyper-vision—being aware of everything around you and being able to identify what is extraneous in the moment. When you do not exercise comprehensive situation awareness, you experience tunnel vision. Tunnel vision occurs when you miss things that could be dangerous or detrimental while working on an activity.
Focusing on the task at hand does not, however, mean that you are devoid of emotion. In fact, you are enriched by being so fully involved in the activity. You experience a deep sense of enjoyment and fulfilment as you immerse yourself in activities that are personally meaningful and intrinsically rewarding. This emotional engagement enhances your concentration and boosts your overall experience of flow, creating a positive feedback loop that sustains immersion in the task.
No matter how you subscribe, I thank you for reading!
Learn to flow!
Dr. Judy