Ever wondered how some people make complex work look effortless? They just seem to get into this state of “flow” – that sweet spot where they’re totally absorbed in what they’re doing and everything just clicks. 

A recent study attempted to map out exactly what happens in the brain in a state of flow. Researchers recruited novice and experienced musicians to perform jazz improvisation exercises while hooked up to a machine tracking their brain activity. They found some interesting similarities and differences in neural patterns, as well as a surprising finding on the relationship of flow to the quality of performance. 

Let’s discuss actionable insights from this study and how we can apply them to our work as business owners and freelancers. Whether you’re drafting a presentation, brainstorming an online course, or planning an event, getting into flow can potentially take your performance and productivity to the next level.

The Anatomy of Flow: What Does it Take?

Flow is not just a feeling, it’s a complex psychological state with distinct characteristics:

1. High sense of control
2. Automaticity in actions
3. Intense focus
4. Distorted sense of time
5. Loss of self-consciousness
6. Clear goals
7. Immediate feedback on performance (can be subjective and based on self-assessment)
8. Task is intrinsically motivating 
9. Task difficulty matches skill level

You are probably familiar with the first six elements, which describe the emotional or mental state of an individual experiencing flow. The last three characteristics are less popular, but they spell out the necessary conditions for achieving that intense focus, automaticity, and loss of self-consciousness that getting ‘in the zone’ is known for.

Flow requires a high level of engagement. We work on something rewarding, we get immediate feedback, and the task difficulty and our skill level are evenly matched. If a task is too easy, we tend to get bored and distracted. If it is too difficult for our skill level, it can also lead to a loss of confidence and focus. 

Think of how engrossed an executive coach would be during a session where the client brings up a new challenge that they have not previously encountered, but for which the coach has related experience they could draw on.  Imagine a seasoned marketing consultant crafting a strategy for a new client who has worked with another marketing firm that did not achieve the goals agreed on. These types of tasks where the level of challenge meets the skill level are conducive to flow. 

Action Plan: Flow requires a level of expertise and a challenging and motivating task at hand. Mastery and experience make being in the zone feel or look ‘easy.’ We have to put in the work to get into and enjoy that flow state. 

Creative vs Non-Creative Flow

While the concept of flow was first studied in the context of the creative processes of artists, existing research has explored this phenomenon in ‘non-creative’ activities too like video gaming, solving math problems, reading, and athletics.

Action Plan: Researchers aren’t all in agreement about what types of activities allow us to experience flow. There is an element of subjectivity as to what is creative and intrinsically motivating – someone might just get a thrill out of setting up automations in a project management tool, drafting pitch decks, or doing a systems audit! Safe to say we can strive for expertise and mastery even in what are not traditionally considered creative activities to benefit from getting into that flow state.

The Neuroscience of Flow: What’s Happening in Your Brain

Scientists have debated two main theories about what happens in our brain during flow states:

1. The “Process Optimization” view suggests that flow represents highly efficient, practiced processing where expertise allows us to perform with minimal interference from overthinking.
2. The “Associative” view proposes that flow comes from enhanced creative association and free-wheeling imagination.

For this study, participants’ brain activity during their jazz improvisation task was recorded and analyzed, and they were also asked to complete self-assessments of how deeply they felt in flow during these performances. A panel of jazz expert judges scored all the performances without knowing who were the seasoned versus novice participants in the study. 

Researchers found fascinating patterns that support the Process Optimization view of flow. During self-reported high-flow states, participants (both novice and expert) showed:

• Reduced activity in frontal brain areas responsible for executive control and decision-making
• Increased activity in regions handling sensory processing like sound and movement

This supports the idea that flow involves letting go of conscious control and allowing well-practiced skills to run automatically. It isn’t about entering a special creative, inspired mode – rather becoming so skilled at something that it becomes automatic. 

So your colleague who can pump out one month’s work of LinkedIn content in a few hours may not necessarily be creatively inspired every time they sit down to do it. Or the freelancer you hire to do a systems documentation may not be a savant who whizzes through the project. It’s just that they’ve done it so many times they’ve become very efficient.

Action Plan: This again goes back to having mastery or competence in a specific skill, but equally important – having the confidence to let your training and experience come through without constantly second-guessing yourself. We featured a study on self-esteem and productivity that touches on some ideas about how we can build this confidence for ourselves or our team. 

Expertise Changes How Flow Works in the Brain

Researchers dove deeper to see how and if flow differed for the more seasoned jazz musicians versus the less experienced.

They found that during high-flow states, experienced musicians showed reduced activity in the default-mode network (DMN), brain areas often involved in self-reflection and mind-wandering. This suggests that experts can block out distractions to focus entirely on their performance. Experts also showed increased activity in the left hemisphere, which is responsible for processing sound and emotion. 

Less-experienced musicians didn’t exhibit significant suppression of the DMN, which could mean they struggled to fully block distractions or self-conscious thoughts during performance. Instead, their flow states involve heightened activity in the right hemisphere, suggesting they rely on broader, less specialized brain networks, which may reflect the additional effort required to manage the improvisation task. Unlike experts, non-experts showed no notable flow-related changes in regions linked to sensory integration.

Think of how a seasoned copywriter might enter flow while writing sales copy without constantly second-guessing word choices, while a novice copywriter might keep stopping to check reference materials and worry about their approach. An experienced web developer can code for hours in flow, handling complex problems automatically, while a junior developer might break focus frequently to look up syntax or debug simple errors. A veteran graphic designer might flow through creating layouts instinctively, while a beginner gets stuck overthinking each design decision.

Action Plan: When we are in the ‘novice stage’ we might rather unfairly compare ourselves to someone who is way ahead in the mastery game. It is useful to know even brain activity patterns show much less efficient brain processing for novices, so focus on mastering fundamental skills to achieve the focus and optimized functioning of an expert brain in flow. 

Expertise and Flow Paradox: Flow States Don’t Automatically Lead to Better Performance in Experts 

Here’s an interesting twist to the study. You might have the impression that achieving a high-flow state is the holy grail of productivity and expertise. The more frequently we can get into that locked-in state of focus and automatic action, we can get anything and everything done and hit our goals.

Surprisingly, the researchers found that flow does not automatically result in high-quality work. Experienced jazz musicians in the study professionals reported feeling flow even during performances which the expert panel of judges scored lower, suggesting that feeling “in the zone” doesn’t guarantee peak output. 

It’s also interesting to note that the less experienced musicians’ experience of flow was correlated to the quality of their output. Researchers think this could mean that the connection between flow and performance quality might weaken as you gain experience since playing becomes more automatic.

Think of how an experienced consultant might feel completely in flow during a client presentation, but receive feedback that their delivery was too technical and missed connecting with the audience. A seasoned social media manager might feel “in the zone” scheduling posts and creating content, but engagement metrics show the content isn’t performing as well as usual. There may be downsides to having done something so many times and associating the locked-in feeling with great work. Heavily relying on subjective self-assessments would tend to lead to this outcome as well. 

Action Plan: This finding offers an important insight for experienced professionals and high-performers (but even for the newbies) – don’t rely solely on that sense of flow as a performance indicator. Where possible, try to develop objective performance metrics, seek external feedback, step back from your work for critical self-evaluation, and practice using flow as a tool, one aspect of high performance but not the end-all or end goal.

Limitations of the Study

While we try to extract useful insights applicable to business owners and freelancers from this scientific study, we note that this study was conducted on a very specific artistic skill, jazz improvisation and there is no guarantee about the applicability of the findings to other domains of expertise. The sample size was also quite small and recruited from a limited geographical area.

The study setup was very artificial – musicians had to play while staying very still (to avoid messing up the brain recordings), use unfamiliar chord patterns, and play along with a recorded track instead of real musicians. All this might have made it harder for them to get into a natural flow state.

The brain scanning technology they used (EEG) has its own limitations. While it’s good at showing when brain activity happens, it’s not great at showing exactly where in the brain this activity occurs. It also can’t pick up activity from deeper brain regions. Future studies should use different brain imaging methods and look at other types of activities to see if these findings hold beyond just jazz improvisation.

The Path Forward: Mastering Your Flow State

Flow isn’t some mystical state of creativity – it’s what happens when you’ve developed such strong skills that you can perform with less conscious interference. This is particularly encouraging because it means flow states become more accessible as you gain mastery in your field.

For those just starting out, remember that your experience of flow may feel different from the experts, and that’s perfectly normal. The path to flow is through practicing smarter and trusting in your developed abilities. This has to be balanced however, with getting objective feedback on the quality of your work. Remember that the state of flow is an indicator of efficiency and proficiency, but not necessarily of effectiveness or excellence every time!