You know that feeling when you are in the zone and time seems to standstill? You’re on fire, completely focused, and distractions vanish? That feeling is FLOW. In today's world with constant interruptions and demands on our attention, achieving flow can feel impossible. But what if there was a way to cultivate this state and optimize your productivity? That's where "flow as a practice" comes in. It's the art of getting in and staying in that magical flow state. We are joined today by a Flow Experience expert to help us understand what Flow is, why it’s important for our joy, ways we can achieve it and more.

Our guest, Arty Starr, has been a software engineer for over 20 years doing work in various areas like semiconductor factory automation, supply chain optimization, data pipeline automation and helping companies identify and solve their biggest problems with data. Today she is a recognized Flow Experience expert, researcher, speaker and thought leader, and author of the book Idea Flow: How to Measure the PAIN in Software Development. During the pandemic our guest decided to get her PhD at the University of Victoria, where she is now a researcher at CHISEL - The Computer Human Interaction & Software Engineering Lab, working with Dr. Margaret-Anne Storey. Her thesis project is developing a theory of Developer Flow, and the two cognitive processes of Momentum and Troubleshooting.

She is also the founder of FlowInsight, helping developers thrive and find joy through more time in the flow state. Additionally, she is on the advisory board of CodeScene, a painter, a 2D/3D animator, and is working on a new play-based approach to learning coding and animation with a 3D character, called "Learning with Fervie".

Our guest believes that we as software engineers are the magicians of this world because we can bring our dreams to life. When our guest is not finding ways to bring the invisible to the forefront, and bring joy and hope back to our work, she is spending her time outside, hangin’ with the trees.

Enjoy the conversation!

Connect with Arty:

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Show notes and helpful resources:

Bridges Summit - YOU DON’T WANT TO MISS THIS
Flow Insights - Sign up for BETA to use the tools Arty talked about during the show - join her to help build a better product
Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
The Computer Human Interaction & Software Engineering Lab at the University of Victoria run by Dr. Margaret-Anne Storey
Arty is speaking at UberConf
Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework by Douglas C. Engelbart
The Human Equation: Building Profits by Putting People First by Jeffery Pfeffer
The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization by Peter Senge
Getting into the optimal performance state by Robert Nideffer
What Makes Interruptions Disruptive?: A Process-Model Account of the Effects of the Problem State Bottleneck on Task Interruption and Resumption, by J. P. Borst, N. A. Taatgen
Shape UP by Ryan Singer
Prerequisite conditions to get into flow state: Clarity of the goals and rules of the task, challenge skill level balance and unambiguous feedback.
Intrinsic motivation is a very important piece to flow
Setting clear goals and breaking down work into micro intentions will help you achieve flow
If we focus on experience and thriving we ought to get productivity for free
Other talks by Arty: Enabling Powerful Software Insights by Visualizing Friction and Flow and Keynote at SpringOne on Flow State

Building something cool or solving interesting problems? Want to be on this show? Send me an email at jointhepodcast@unfilteredbuild.com

Podcast produced by Unfiltered Build - dream.design.develop.