Understanding Creative Flow State
The search for increased creativity and productivity.
Flow. It’s the sense of freedom that comes when things come together so smoothly and precisely that whatever you’re doing stops feeling like work and instead becomes something that’s simply a pleasure to do. It’s what drives the creative process for us at Agave Social.
Over the past decade, creative flow, the mental state where self-awareness begins to fade out and ideas stream fast and steady, seemingly on their own has become more and more well known. There are best-selling books on creative flow, seminars on how to achieve it, and entire fields of study devoted to figuring out exactly how it works. For creatives and marketers, the flow state is the most rewarding way to get to the creative ideas that help our clients win business.
The flow state is essentially a neurobiological phenomenon, one that scientists are only starting to begin to understand the mechanics of. When we enter it, our brains transition from producing the fast-moving beta brainwaves that define normal waking consciousness to the borderline state between alpha waves, which are often associated with daydreaming, and theta waves that typically only occur during REM sleep and the liminal hypnagogic state we experience just at the point of falling asleep.
At the same time, the brain experiencing creative flow will also go into “transient hypofrontality,” a state where the prefrontal cortex–the center of our higher cognitive function and the home of our sense of self–temporarily deactivates. The result is that the parts of our brain that are most responsible for impulse control and critical thought–the parts that make us experience feelings like anxiety and self-doubt–go quiet, leaving ideas free to cascade without our internal filters getting in the way.
“When it's going good, it's like a faucet, and the ideas are like running water.”
“the best feeling that I can imagine, when ideas and everything is coming naturally and organically and easily.”
The benefits of getting into a creative flow are numerous and varied. Studies show that the flow state doesn’t just improve creativity in the moment; it can actually have long-term effects.
So what’s the secret to getting into the flow? If you have a big creative project ahead, we recommend these steps for increased creativity and productivity:
Meditate and/or Exercise to prepare your mind for focusing
Turn off distractions
Tidy your space
Mute email and text notifications
Close your office door
Put on headphones to signal to others that you’re in the Flow State
Turn on Music
Check out one of our favorite Spotify playlists for creative flow below 👇
Get to Work! If you don’t feel it immediately, remember that it can take some time. The more you practice getting into a creative flow, the easier it is to get into the state, and the more creative and productive you’ll be.