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The cover of Flow

Flow

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, 1990

Learn how to enter the absorbed state where challenge meets skill, so you can draw real enjoyment from work, relationships and hardship instead of waiting for good fortune.

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9 parts, about 27 minutes to read.

Why read it

  • Argues that happiness comes less from what happens to us than from how we order attention and meet real challenges
  • Shows how to turn work, hobbies, relationships and even hardship into flow by matching skills to goals with clear feedback
  • Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi builds on interviews with thousands of people across many cultures and on pager studies of workers

Who it is for

  • People who feel restless or bored despite comfortable lives
  • Workers wanting more absorption in their daily jobs
  • Parents and couples who want family life to feel absorbing

What the summary covers

  1. The Question Aristotle Left Open3 min
  2. Why Frustration Is Built In3 min
  3. Attention Is Psychic Energy3 min
  4. Enjoyment Is Not Pleasure2 min
  5. The Elements of Enjoyment3 min
  6. Challenges and Skills3 min
  7. The Paradox of Work3 min
  8. Other People and Bad Luck3 min
  9. Making a Life Into One Flow Experience4 min

Recommended by

  • Daniel KahnemanAuthor of Thinking, Fast and Slow
    [He] has done more than anyone else to study this state of effortless attending

About the author

  • Mihaly CsikszentmihalyiPsychologist who named the concept of flow; Claremont Graduate University professor, died 2021
    • Born 29 September 1934 in Fiume, now Rijeka in Croatia
    • Became curious about happiness after seeing the suffering of Europeans in World War II
    • Bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago in 1960 and Ph.D. there in 1965
    • Taught at Lake Forest College, then joined the University of Chicago faculty in 1969 and led its Department of Psychology
    • Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Management at Claremont Graduate University
    • Won the Clifton Strengths Prize in 2009
    • Received the Szechenyi Prize in 2011 and the Grand Cross of the Hungarian Order of Merit in 2014
    • Flow has been translated into more than 20 languages

Read it alongside

  • Puts it into practiceThe ONE Thing

    Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi argues that a life becomes whole when one goal is hard enough that the others follow from it. Gary Keller gives a practice: work down from the someday goal to this year, today and right now, and block time early in the day.

  • Goes deeperDopamine Nation

    Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi says television and drugs impose a cheap order on the mind and leave nothing behind. Anna Lembke shows what repeated heavy use of high reward drugs and habits can leave behind: weaker pleasure, stronger pain and a dopamine deficit.

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