Done in record time!

[unbibium]

Well, I finished Spaceland.

What is it about extradimensional novels that make me read them in a single day?

Seriously; whether it's a book, a project, a hobby, anything... I usually don't have the focus to do anything for more than fifteen minutes or so, when I feel like getting up, watching TV, getting a snack, whatever. But I picked up this book and I couldn't put it down. And the last time this happened with a book, it was with Planiverse.

There are occasional exceptions when I get an engrossing programming project. But since I do most of my programming at work these days, it's kind of rare.

I know I have the power to focus on things, and I'd like to know how to harness it.

Comments

[sunburn.livejournal.com]

The phenomenon is called "Flow" and you can bet it has spawned a ridiculous series of self-help books by the man who described it, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. (Try it, it's easier to pronounce than you might think.) Csikszentmihalyi is a Behaviorist from Chicago and has spent most of his career studying the phenomenon, but a friend assures me that it doesn't make his books a good value-- like most such books, it'll be a couple chapters of interesting reading and science, and the rest is filler. But at least you know it has a name.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060920432

[jecook]

eh.

I slide into that every now and again when I'm doing something repetitive, like mopping floors.It makes time, uh, flow faster, or if I'm reading a decent book.