💌 Delightful Products: Getting back into flow
How a state of creativity and happiness is creating meaning in product design
Hi y’all! 👋
For new readers, welcome, welcome to our first issue of 2021! 🥳 For OG readers, thank you so much for your patience. 💖
I recently took a 2 month hiatus from this newsletter to focus on moving to a new city. Though we didn't move far, it really felt like a big one (at least for me). I sold or donated most of my old furniture, cut down my possessions to the absolute minimum, and transitioned from living on my own to living with my life partner. Though we finished unpacking our last box a month ago, the weeks since then have been a very intensive process of adapting to a new home and new living habits.
In an effort to get back into things, I've been thinking a lot about flow 🌊.
Flow (or flow state) is a popular term in positive psychology, defined as:
"An optimal state of consciousness where we feel our best and perform our best.”
- Mihály Csíkszentmihályi
Flow state feels almost like a type of meditation 🧘🏽- it's that moment of feeling completely focused, absorbed in the present, and lost in the task at-hand.
Flow is often affiliated with heightened feelings of creativity, empowerment, and productivity- all benefits that digital products often promise. Yet, we rarely look to technology to help us find flow. In fact, most of us probably associate our devices and apps with the opposite: buzzes, pings, and other noisy distractions.
But what if we flipped this paradigm? What if technology actually nudged us into flow, instead of pulling us out?
Today, join me as we explore the world of product flow, including:
⏳ A summary of flow, from the ground-breaking research of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
🗒️ The Product Flow Framework: My own 4-step guide to designing product flow
🧠 5 fantastic resources to unlock your own flow and continue learning
Without further ado…. (you know I have to say it)…
Let’s get into flow.