Why it was said

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi opens Flow with this finding from decades of studies in which people were paged at random and asked what they were doing and how they felt. The answer surprised the people themselves.

What it actually means

We plan our lives around rest as if rest were where happiness lives, and the data said otherwise: the moments people rated highest were the ones in which they were stretched, absorbed and working at the edge of their ability at something they had chosen. The sentence is the first half of a definition; the second half, which follows in the book, is that the best moments come from voluntary effort at something difficult and worthwhile.

How to use it

1. 1Look at last week and mark the hours you would call the best; check how many were rest and how many were absorbed effort.
2. 2Design one block this week to be difficult, chosen and uninterrupted, and compare it with the evening on the sofa.