At Tools For Productivity, the best tools that we can hope to discover or discuss are going to be conceptual in nature. One such conceptual tool is the understanding between skills and challenges that enables optimal engagement in any task. This optimal balance has been termed flow state.

skill-challenge-dichotomy

The idea itself is quite straightforward. In any sophisticated field of work or craft, consider an individual or team that starts working at a particular skill level on tasks in that field (S1). As the individual or team spends more time on similar jobs or task, we would find the team transitions to one of the following

  • The work becomes too easy (S2) leading to boredom
  • The work increases in complexity (S3) leading to anxiety
  • The work increases and so does the skill (S4) leading to a higher flow state.

Obviously, (S4) is the desired state that should be reached irrespective of the line of work or skills of those involved. To do that the work needs to be adapted appropriately to the skill set and both need to be improved simultaneously. The key takeaway is to seek out the right challenges dynamically

Constantly seek the right challenges that improve skills of yourself or your team

The original ideas are from the book “Flow” by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. A similar concise explanation with more colourful diagrams is in this post by Chris Bailey. Other resources online discussing the same concept with different objectives and in varying disciplines are

Concrete examples of this process occur as part of developing Tools For Productivity, in particular with the use of jekyll1 to build the site. There are also times and situations when implementing this might seem impossible. I hope to discuss these further in coming posts.

  1. Jekyll Homepage - a Static Site Generator ↩