Note Details
- Writing things down while in flow state is one of the best ways to build upon that session in the future.
The concept of flow was developed by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who described it as a state of optimal experience — complete absorption in an activity where the challenge level precisely matches one’s skill. During flow, self-consciousness recedes, time distortion occurs, and intrinsic motivation peaks. The work produced during these states often reflects a coherence and depth that is difficult to achieve through deliberate effort alone.
Writing during flow is particularly valuable because it externalises thought at the moment of its greatest fluency. Ideas that feel vivid and interconnected in the moment can evaporate within minutes once the state passes. Capturing them in writing — even rough, unpolished writing — creates an artefact that preserves both the content and something of the relational structure between ideas. These notes become raw material for future synthesis, allowing you to re-enter the conceptual space of the original insight without having to reconstruct it from scratch.
Techniques for entering flow while writing include: eliminating distractions before beginning, starting with freewriting to bypass the inner critic, working at the edge of your current understanding (the challenge-skill balance), and establishing environmental cues that signal to the mind that it is time to write. The key insight is that flow is not something that happens to you — it is a state that can be cultivated through deliberate practice and environmental design.