I was reading a book about students and attention—Distracted: Why Students Can’t Focus and What You Can Do About It—when I had an epiphany. Not about why my students had trouble focusing, but about what I love about classrooms and even, dare I admit, about meetings.

It was flow.

Flow is that magic state you enter when you lose yourself in a task. Some people get it while skiing or sailing or biking. You are completely in the moment—challenged and absorbed. You’re not thinking really, you’re doing and being. You don't need to think about what to do—it just happens.

Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi coined the word "flow" to describe a highly focused, highly pleasurable mental state. Although people often associate their happiest times with relaxation, Csikszentmihalyi thought otherwise. He would "ping" his participants multiple times a day, asking them what they were doing, who they were with, and how they felt.

What he learned was striking. People reported feeling the most positive when they were in a state of intense concentration. Adults often experience this doing absorbing work they truly enjoy. Adolescents most often experience it in leisure, in sports, engaging in the arts, or playing video games.

Csikszentmihalyi called this emotional experience flow. What we feel in........

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