When was the last time you were working on a task— so engrossed that the hours just melted away? Today, it’s often referred to as “being in the zone.” Does it happen every day? Probably not. But sometimes, absolutely.
Psychologists and Professors, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Jeanne Nakamura recognized the concept and introduced it into the vernacular. In Wired magazine, Csikszentmihalyi once described flow thusly” being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you're using your skills to the utmost.”
I’ll bet that you didn’t know that Laserfiche Founder, Nien-Ling Wacker designed Laserfiche as an environment that allows you to work in a flow state. Her entire theory of democratizing information and treating a repository as an auxiliary brain providing a framework to support flow and the rhythms of how humans work.
In order to achieve a flow state some conditions must be met:
You need to care about the task and it should be important to you
The activity, job, or task is difficult to be interesting but not too difficult
Optimally, the activity should be something that you are good at
Your mindset should be focused on the steps of the task, not the completion
No multitasking, It’ll create too many distractions
To me, it makes sense that being in flow with Laserfiche would involve some sort of process Or building the workflow behind the process. Records management tasks definitely have enough depth to immerse you in flow. So, does batch processing, adding new fields to a template, and reassigning templates. Assuming you’ve got your metadata tagged correctly. I can even envision running a series of searches for a PRR (public records requests). It’s really satisfying to search in Laserfiche for documents and have them appear in tenths of seconds. Additionally, it’s even more fulfilling to unearth unexpected results, such as work products from years ago, that prove useful today.
How do you know when you are in flow? You need to start paying attention to how you work. Notice what you’re doing, and look for the key indicators of flow: losing your sense of time, feeling that you’re working with ease, gaining new insights, and having a positive feedback loop.
Everyone gets into their flow state differently. You might be really good at problem-solving with workflows, and you’re best when you’re left alone to find solutions. Or, you might be at your best when you’re giving and receiving feedback or working with residents delivering in-person counter service.
When you make your flow state more accessible and repeatable, you’re setting the stage for your best self to show up more often. And you might just find that you can pass on these benefits to others. If you're interested in speaking to one of us about how we or our clients work in flow with Laserfiche, please contact us.
