The Art of Flow States

In a recent blog post, Sarah Drasner, Director of Engineering, Web at Google, explored how programmers can continue to work when challenged. Her curiosity led her to one place: Flow States. 

While Drasner admits that managers cannot give employees Flow States, and that it’s up to the individual to create it for themselves, she writes that managers “should, however, create an environment where flow state can exist.”

Since coining the term in his 1975 book, Beyond Boredom and Anxiety: Experiencing Flow in Work and Play, Hungarian-American psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of Flow States has become an aspirational model for millions. 

More people are waking up to the fact that their life is being stolen from them by the attention-grabbing algorithms of their social media feeds, relentless notifications, the stream of emails and Slacks, and everything else competing for our time. 

Flow States Offer a Solution

We launched over a year ago with Centered 1.0—a tight and lean Task Manager focused on productivity.  And it worked—thousands of early users have reported that they finish their work 30% faster and feel more accomplished at the end of the day. 

After learning which features you loved, we experimented with co-working and Flow States with Centered 2.0.  One valuable piece of information we received is that people love working together, even in digital spaces.  In fact, research shows that remote workers experience a productivity boost when co-working through digital platforms. Centered 2.0 addressed that issue by creating a virtual co-working space. 

Many users wanted us to revive the best features of Centered 1.0, and so we're proud to announce that with the launch of Centered 3.0, we’ve taken the best of 1.0 and 2.0 and combined them in an effort to create an ideal Flow State app. 

This latest iteration combines Task management, Flow States, our voice coach, Noah, and the beloved Mini-Player—and is incredibly lightweight and fast. 

Here are a few features of 3.0 we think you’ll enjoy 

• App Tracking & Analytics (Premium users)
• Distraction Nudges
• Recurring Tasks
• Keyboard Shortcuts
• Breathing Exercises while on Break
• 100+ hours of bespoke Flow Music
• Virtual Co-Working Flow Sessions
• Slack DND

Enter the Flow

As Csikszentmihalyi wrote in his breakthrough 1990 book, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience,

Only direct control of experience, the ability to derive moment-by-moment enjoyment from everything we do, can overcome the obstacles to fulfillment.

Centered 3.0 empowers you to overcome obstacles standing in the way of your productivity, fulfillment, and happiness. In an age defined by endless distractions, we’re fighting the algorithms so that you can get your best work done and feel better about yourself. 

To experience the full suite of tools we’ve created, use code CENTEREDLAUNCH to get a premium membership for the first month for free.