Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention

by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi

one needs to get on with the work. The more ambitious the task, the longer it takes to lose oneself in it, and the easier it is to get distracted.

A scientist working on an arcane problem must detach himself from the “normal” world and roam with his mind in a world of disembodied symbols that now you see, now you don’t. Any intrusion from the solid world of everyday reality can make that world disappear in an instant. It is for this reason that Freeman Dyson “hides” in the library when he’s writing and why Marcel Proust used to seclude himself in a windowless room lined with cork when he sat down...

More serious health, family, or financial problems could occupy the mind of a person so insistently that he or she is no longer able to devote enough attention to work. Then a long period of drought may follow, a write...

Many of our respondents were thankful to their spouses for providing a buffer from exactly these kinds of distractions. This was especially true of the men; the women sometimes mentioned pointedly that they also would have liked

to have had a wife to spare them from worries that interfered with their concentration on work.

“Don’t go into science if you are interested in money. Don’t go into science if you will not enjoy it even if you do not become famous. Let fame be something that you accept graciously if you get it, but make sure that it is a career that you can enjoy. That requires intrinsic motivation. And try to pick a setting in which you can work on the problems that intrinsically motivate you even if they are not exciting to others. Try to have the situational setting so that you can enjoy that work intrinsically, even if you are out of step with the time.”

Certainly all of these people seem to have heeded their own advice. None pursued money and fame. Some became comfortably wealthy from their inventions or their books, but none of them felt fortunate because of it. What they felt fortunate about was that they could get paid for something they had such fun doing and that in the bargain they could feel that what they did might help the human condition along.

It interests me. It is a source of satisfaction.

Achieving something that one thinks is important. Without such a consciousness or motivation it seems to me that life could be rather dull and purposeless, and I wouldn’t want to attempt that kind of life. Of complete leisure, say, of having absolutely nothing to do that one felt was worth doing—that strikes me as a rather desperate situation to be in.

FLOW AND HAPPINESS What is the relation between flow and happiness? This is a very interesting and delicate question. At first, it is easy to conclude that the two must be the same thing. But actually the connection is a bit more complex. First of all, when we are in flow, we do not usually feel happy—for the simple reason that in flow we feel only what is relevant to the activity. Happiness is a distraction. The poet in the middle of writing or the scientist working out

equations does not feel happy, at least not without losing the thread of his or her thought. It is only after we get out of flow, at the end of a session or in moments of distraction within it, that we might indulge in feeling happy. And then there is the rush of well-being, of satisfaction that comes when the poem is completed or the theorem is proved.

The problem is that it is easier to find pleasure in things that are easier, in activities like sex and violence that are already programmed into our genes. Hunting, fishing, eating, and mating have privileged places in our nervous system. It is also easy to enjoy making money, or discovering new lands, or conquering new territories, or building elaborate palaces, temples, or tombs because these projects are in synchrony with survival strategies established long ago in our physiological makeup. It is much more difficult to learn to enjoy doing things that were discovered recently in our evolution, like manipulating symbolic systems by doing math or science or writing poetry or music, and learning from doing these things about the world and about ourselves.

Neither parents nor schools are very effective at teaching the young to find pleasure in the right things. Adults, themselves often deluded by infatuation with fatuous models, conspire in the deception. They make serious tasks seem dull and hard, and frivolous ones exciting and easy. Schools generally fail to teach how exciting, how mesmerizingly beautiful science or mathematics can be; they teach the routine of literature or history rather than the adventure.

It is in this sense that creative individuals live exemplary lives. They show how joyful and interesting

complex symbolic activity is. They have struggled through marshes of ignorance, deserts of disinterest, and with the help of parents and a few visionary teachers they have found themselves on the other side of the known. They have become pioneers of culture, models for what men and women of the future will be—if there is to be a future at all. It is by following their example that human consciousness will grow beyond the limitations of the past, the programs that genes and cultures have wired into our brains. Perhaps our children, or their children, will feel more joy in wr...

Iowa might be the place to learn creative writing or etching,

When ordinary people are signaled with an electronic pager at random times of the day and asked to rate how creative they feel, they tend to report the highest levels of creativity when walking, driving, or swimming; in other words, when involved in a semiautomatic activity that takes up a certain amount of attention, while leaving some of it free to make connections among ideas below the threshold of conscious intentionality. Devoting full attention to a problem is not the best recipe for having creative thoughts.

When we think intentionally, thoughts are forced to follow a linear, logical—hence predictable

But when attention is focused on the view during a walk, part of the brain is left free to pursue associations that normally are not made. This mental activity takes place backstage, so to speak; we become aware of it only occasionally. Because these thoughts are not in the center of attention, they are left to develop on their own. There is no need to direct them, to criticize them prematurely, to make them do hard work. And of course it is just this freedom and playfulness that makes it possible for leisurely thinking to come up with original formulations and solutions. For as soon as we get a connection that feels right, it will jump into our awareness. The compelling combination may appear as we are lying in bed half asleep, or while shaving in the bathroom, or during a walk in the woods. At that...

of evaluation and elaboration is necessary before brilliant flashes of insight can be accepted and applied. But without them,...

So the reason Martha’s Vineyard, the Grand Tetons, or the Big Sur may stimulate creativity is that they present such novel and complex sensory experiences—mainly visual ones, but also birdsong, water sounds, the taste and feel of the air—that one’s attention is jolted out of its customary grooves and seduced to follow the novel and attractive patterns. However, the sensory menu does not require a full investment of attention; enough ps...

What helps to preserve and develop individuality, and hence enhance creativity, is an environment that we have built to reflect ourselves, where it is easy to forget the outside world and concentrate completely on the task at hand.

Most creative individuals find out early what their best rhythms are for sleeping, eating, and working, and abide by them even when it is tempting to do otherwise. They wear clothes that are comfortable, they interact only with people they find congenial, they do only things they think are important. Of course, such idiosyncrasies are not endearing to those they have to deal with, and it is not surprising that creative people are generally considered strange and difficult to get along with. But personalizing patterns of action helps to free the mind from the expectations that make demands on attention and allows intense concentration on matters that count.

what counts is to be master of one’s own time.

So it seems that surroundings can influence creativity in different ways, in part depending on the stage of the process in which a person is involved. During preparation, when one is gathering the elements out of which the problem is going to emerge, an ordered, familiar environment

is indicated, where one can concentrate on interesting issues without the distractions of “real” life. For the scientist it is the laboratory, for the businessperson the office, for the artist the studio. At the next stage, when thoughts about the problem incubate below the level of awareness, a different environment may be more helpful. The distraction of novel stimuli, of magnificent views, of alien cultures, allows the subconscious mental processes to make connections that are unlikely when the problem is pursued by the linear logic learned from experience. And after the unexpected connection results in an insight, the familiar environment is again more conducive for completing the process; evaluation and elaboration proceed more efficiently in the sober atmosphere where the logic of the domain prevails.

However, at any point in time, what matters most is that we shape the immediate surroundings, activities, and schedules so as to feel in harmon...

where we happen to be located. It is nice if this location is as fetching as a villa on Lake Como; it is a far greater challenge when fate throws you into a Siberian gulag. At either extreme, what counts is for consciousness to find ways to adapt its rhythms to what is outside and, to a certain extent, to transform what it encounters outside to its own rhythms. Being in tune with place and time, we experience the reality of our unique existence and it...

The implications for everyday life are simple: Make sure that where you work and live reflects your needs and your tastes. There should be room for immersion in concentrated activity and for stimulating novelty. The objects around you should help you become what you intend to be. Think about how you use time and consider whether y...

you discover the best timing for work and rest, for thought and action, for being alone ...

So beyond these external factors where luck holds sway, what allows certain individuals to make memorable contributions to the culture is a personal resolution to shape their lives to suit their own goals instead of letting external forces rule their destiny. Indeed, it could be said that the most obvious achievement of these people is that they created their own lives.

Practically every individual who has made a novel contribution to a domain remembers feeling awe about the mysteries of life and has rich anecdotes to tell about efforts to solve them.

Youths with special talents also tend to be less sexually aware and less independent from their families than the norm. This is an important factor in their development, because it means that they spend relatively more time in the protected, playful stages of life in which experimentation and learning are easier to achieve. Sexually active adolescents meld quickly into the program of the genes, and if they achieve autonomy too early they become burdened by social responsibilities like getting a job, keeping house, and rearing children. Thus they have less freedom to try out the new ideas and behaviors that are essential to the development of creativity. At the same time, a youth

who is not too interested in sex and depends on his parents is likely to be unpopular, a typical nerd.

Unfortunately, one cannot be exceptional and normal at the same time. Parents often fret and plot to make their talented children more popular without realizing the inherent contradiction. Popularity, or even the strong ties to friends so common in adolescence, tends to make a young person conform to the peer culture.

If the peer group itself is intellectual, as in the case of George Klein and a few others, then the conformity supports the development of talent. But in most cases it is not. Then loneliness, however painful, helps protect the interests of the adolescent from being diluted by the typical concerns of that stage of life.

Marginality—the feeling of being on the outside, of being different, of observing with detachment the strange rituals of one’s peers—was a common theme.

a creative life is still determined, but what determines it is a will moving across time—the fierce determination to succeed, to make sense of the world, to use whatever means to unravel some of the mysteries of the universe.

What is important is to recognize the interest when it shows itself, nurture it, and provide the opportunities for it to grow into a creative life.

Milner calls it focus, Yalow calls it drive—this advantage they had over more brilliant fellow students. After curiosity, this quality of concentrated attention is what creative individuals mention most often as having set them apart in college from their peers. Without this quality, they could not have sustained the hard work, the “perspiration.

Curiosity and drive are in many ways the yin and the yang that need to be combined in order to achieve something new. The first requires openness to outside stimuli, the second inner focus. The first is playful, the second serious; the first deals with objects and ideas for their own sake, the second is competitive and achievement oriented. Both are required for creativity to become actualized.

SUPPORTIVE PARTNERS The individuals in our sample had, as a rule, stable and satisfying marital relationships. Some of those in the arts started out having a vigorous and varied sex life, but most of them married early and stayed married to their spouses for thirty, forty, or more than fifty years.

The writers described fiery romantic lives in their youth, but they all eventually settled down to domestic bliss.

When asked which of their accomplishments they were most proud of, a great many of our respondents—and almost as many men as women—mentioned their family and children.

When explaining what enabled them to accomplish what they had achieved, several pointed to the indispensable help of their spouses.

I feel that I am uncommonly lucky because we’ve had such a terribly good time together. It’s always been an adventure and we haven’t come to the end yet. We haven’t finished talking, and I swear that conversation is more important to marriage than sex. It has been enormously helpful in my work because my wife sort of clears the way so that I can get down to business and work without interruptions.

“The only thing you need for poetry that seems to me essential is quiet—and time. And if you have a spouse who is understanding, he or she will see to it that you are not interfered with and that time and quiet are available to you.”

This theme of the spouse as a protective buffer against the intrusions of the world was repeated again and again by practically...

look around for some young woman who’s majoring in home economics.

I think it’s an important counterbalance, particularly to an active life, particularly to a life that’s very abrasive—fighting, leading in the public arena, and so forth.