Emily McDonald explains flow state happens when task difficulty matches your skill level. Too hard causes stress, too easy causes boredom. Add time limits or stretch goals to routine work to find that edge where your brain engages.
Find your edge. We need a challenge-to-skill balance. So you don't wanna be doing something that's gonna be super difficult. It's gonna stress you out, but you also don't want it to be boring. And so how can you activate this? How can you do this when the tasks are boring? You're like, but, um, I work this job and it's like these mundane things and I am bored. Well, how can you make it a little more challenging or a little more exciting? Maybe you can put a time restriction on yourself. Maybe you can say, I'm gonna get this amount done in this amount of time, and it's sort of a stretch for you, and you're not exactly sure if you're gonna be able to do it. That is one way that you can sort of make a mundane, everyday, boring task more challenging so that you can actually activate the neurochemicals for flow. Flow lives right at the edge of your abilities.
