The Mental State That Turns Work Into Play

Daniel Diaz-Bonilla
May 27
4 min read

Updated: Jun 5

What NBA stars, surgeons, and consultants understand about doing your best work.

By Daniel Diaz-Bonilla

4 min read

May 23, 2025

We’ve all had those moments where a task—perhaps it’s writing a paper or wrangling an excel model—feels like a slow boil of boredom. You cannot seem to focus, you constantly glance at the clock, you reach for your phone at every buzz because it’s a lifeline away from the boring work. We might do the work begrudgingly out of obligation, but if we could escape it, we would. Like shaking an unopened soda can, unengaging work creates a fizzy feeling of anxious anticipation which we cannot wait to leave.

Now, contrast that with 2025 NBA MVP Shai Gildous Alexander’s description of how he feels when he’s playing basketball: “I feel like I’m flowing, the game is just coming to me. I’m not pressing, I’m not thinking, I’m just out there hooping.” Some applauded Shai’s aura—his effortless confidence and presence in interviews and on the court—others were envious, and some wistfully wished they could feel like that in their work. But what nearly everyone failed to detect in Shai’s comments is the presence of something underneath the apparent swagger, something deeper and more sophisticated—a psychological state of mind called “flow.”

Flow is a term coined by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi after decades of research. It’s defined as “a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.” Mihaly identified flow as an elevated state of being where one’s sense of time dissolves, self-consciousness disappears, and where one’s best work is often accomplished. It’s a powerful phenomenon which boosts happiness and high performance, and it emerges when humans find a task or activity which deftly balances their skill against a challenge which is hard enough to demand their full attention, but still within reach of their ability. Perhaps most importantly, flow becomes a recipe for doing great work—and enjoying it.

Shai’s comments are riddled with the telltale signs of flow: immersion with the task, the outside world fading away, and peak performance achieved. But here’s the central question: is flow a luxury only reserved for elite athletes like Shai or can it be accessed in ordinary life by ordinary people doing ordinary work? After all, playing basketball (a game) feels far different than working in an office. To resolve this question, we spoke with professionals across more than 50 careers. We wanted to know: where does flow appear? Who gets to experience it? And what does it feel like when it arrives?

Going into the interviews, we were not sure what to expect, but what we found was flow did not always live in the obvious places. Some said their work had grown fragmented and distracted, too reactive to permit the sustained concentration necessary for flow. Others recalled past moments where they fondly recalled time slipping away and flow being reached. And then, there were the lucky few who found flow as a regular feature of their career. These flow finders were everywhere: in courtrooms, conference rooms, and operating tables.

A management consultant told us about the feeling of flow when presenting to clients: “It’s those situations where you feel an unbelievable amount of confidence,” he said. “It feels like all the things you’ve learned come together in that moment. There’s no question you can’t answer, no insight you can’t provide. That feeling can go on forever. You’re almost not conscious, and there’s no worry.”

An architect spoke of drawing as a portal to flow: “I would just be deep in the drawing, deep in figuring out a problem over the course of multiple days, I would just be drawing to work through the problem.” During the flow, the architects experienced “a zen-like feeling with such deep focus” and a desire to do the activity “for days at a time.” “I could do this forever,” one architect said.

Like shaking an unopened soda can, unengaging work creates a fizzy feeling of anxious anticipation which we cannot wait to leave.

A surgeon described a complex procedure as a gateway to flow: “There’s this moment where everything is going just right. Everything is happening at the right time. Things are being put in the right place. Cuts are being made in the right spot. Everything is easy.”

In every case, the richness of the experience is dependent on doing something you’re good at while still being challenged. Persuading. Drawing. Performing surgery. These are complex tasks which require a specific skill set, but when the challenge and the skill set align, it’s a moment of connection which even romantic heartthrob movies might envy. And when these moments occur, the feeling is priceless: total focus, immersion, high performance, cares melting away. Flow achieved.

The tragedy is that many modern work environments are obstacles to flow: noise, distraction, shallow meetings, routine and unchallenging work, and misalignment between work and skillset. All of these conspire against flow. But as the professionals we interviewed show, we are capable of achieving flow, of disappearing into professional excellence.

So how do you find it?

Begin with this question: what would you do if you didn’t have to do anything? The thing you feel drawn to do, the thing you would do for free, the thing you would do if you didn’t have to do it—that’s your clue.

Of course, there are hacks and tips to make the most of whatever work you are doing: turn the phone off, minimize distractions, and do tasks which adequately challenge you. But, on a deeper level, find a career where the work is aligned with your skill, where what you have to do is what you’d want to do anyway. If you’re a performer, maybe it’s delivering a strategy deck. If you’re a builder, maybe it’s sketching blueprints. If you’re manually dexterous, maybe it’s surgery.

The tragedy is that many modern work environments are obstacles to flow: noise,

distraction, shallow meetings, routine and unchallenging work, and misalignment between work and skillset.

Reflect on your life and pinpoint when you have felt flow. When did you lose yourself in the work? What was the core thing you were doing? What job requires that core thing?

Follow the thread, find the place where challenges meet your talent, and then feel the flow.