Time in the Zone

It was one of the most magical experiences of your life. Only after the fact did you realize that more than five hours had passed; at the time, it seemed as though perhaps you spent 30 minutes so deeply immersed in this single activity that nothing else mattered. Your focus was utterly pure.

As you stepped backwards, you gazed down at the 5,000 coins you had stacked in a precise pattern you had seen illustrated in a magazine.

That's right, stacking 5,000 coins was one of the highlights of your life.

***

This made-up tale illustrates one of the most important lessons you could possibly learn, that the quality of how you spend your time should only be measured with one metric: the level of flow, or immersion, you experience.

Is making love more meaningful than folding paper?

Is writing a Pulitzer Prize-winning book more meaningful than sweeping your floor?

Is giving a TED Talk more meaningful than walking around a pond?

All depend on the level of immersion you experience.

There are no external ways to measure accurately the value of how you spend your time. The more everything else disappears from your awareness—leaving only the one thing you are doing—the greater the value of what you are doing.

In the flow state, we reach what might be the highest level a human being can experience.

Are you ready for the best news of all?

Once you realize that you can experience the flow state doing almost anything, you are on the verge of having a life that exceeds your wildest dreams.

All it takes is to treat every one of your activities as an opportunity to experience true bliss:

Going shopping.

Making the bed.

Running in the park.

Meditating.

Chewing your food.

You don't need to climb a mountain or go surfing to experience this magical state. You simply need to do one thing at a time, to the exclusion of everything else.

This lesson has taken me a long, long time to absorb. You might want to pause and think about the words you just read.

Or... you might read them again, this time slower and with nowhere else in the world you would rather be.