When last do you remember being so engrossed in something that nothing else mattered?

Come to think of it, in this age of distraction, when last did you watch TV without your phone in your hand?

I watched my son on the weekend, making his own LEGO creation: a dragon with two heads, a rotating spine fashioned from a car-kit axle, and wheels at the end of its tail.

It was structural creativity in motion and consumed his attention for a good two hours, no mean feat for an active nine-year-old.

What I was witnessing was the often elusive state called “flow”.

Coined by Hungarian psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the term describes a cognitive state where you are completely immersed in an activity, to the extent that you lose track of time. It’s also known as being “in the zone”.

Think about times when you’ve found flow in the past. What were you doing?

It could be as simple as drawing, doing a puzzle, walking in the park, or enjoying a yoga lesson.

When you’re in flow, the world seems to fade away. You’re fully present in the moment, doing what you love.

Flow involves intense focus, creative engagement, and the loss of awareness of time and self.

I often see kids in flow (perhaps because they are more in the moment), particularly young kids when they’re playing on the playground.

How do adults find flow? We spend so much time consumed by busyness, whether it’s chasing deadlines at work, rushing to fetch kids from school, shopping for dinner, or dealing with home maintenance.

At the end of the day, exhausted, we get into bed to unwind on social media or binge-watch the latest series. Sometimes, both at the same time.

With so much busyness in our lives, in our world of always-on technology, how do we find the energy to find flow, let alone the time?

The good news is that anyone can find flow. It’s not reserved for the poets, dancers, and creatives of this world.

Csikszentmihalyi makes it clear that we need to push ourselves out of our comfort zones to induce flow. It’s a dynamic state, and changes as we begin to master a skill.

When that skill level exceeds the activity you’re doing, you move out of flow and into boredom. You have to adjust to attaining a new skill level if you want to return to flow.

Flow is a delicate balance between the tension of anxiety and the tedium of boredom. These are its basic ingredients:

• Clarity of goals and required activities – In other words, knowing what to do, with a clear goal.
• Immediate feedback Audience laughter can spur a comedian to greater heights. If yoga is your thing, holding a balance pose without falling will give you immediate feedback on your progress.
• A balance between challenge and skills – My challenge is doing a headstand in yoga. To get there, I need certain skills, such as learning how to move from a dolphin pose into a headstand.
• Not agonising over failure – As my yoga instructor says, your only competition is yourself. Your body and mind will allow you into the pose when you are ready.
• A disappearance of self-consciousness and distractions When you are fully immersed and focused, distractions disappear.
• A sense of timelessness or distorted time Like my son spending two hours building his LEGO and forgetting about lunch.
• The process is more enjoyable than the result. One example is Yoko Ono’s famous 1966 artwork, Ceiling Painting/Yes Painting. The viewer was expected to climb a ladder and use a magnifying glass to look at a tiny word printed on paper, beneath a sheet of glass suspended from the ceiling. The word was “yes”. A powerful affirmation of the joy of flow as a creative force.

Finding flow is a great antidote to chasing busyness. We enjoy it because it stirs feelings of pride, success, and achievement.

These set up a virtuous cycle that inclines us to pursue further learning and development.

Flow can help us grow and become lifelong learners. It can also help regulate our emotions. When you’re fully focused on the task at hand, you’re not thinking about your doubts or anxieties. You’re not worrying about the uncertainties in your life.

You’re right in the here and now, and nothing else matters. You’re in the zone. You’re flowing!