What if there was a magical incantation you could chant to drop into a state of flow when writing?
You’d want that incantation, right?
Well, I don’t know any a magical incantation, but I can offer you the next-best thing: open-ended questions.
Here’s why.
Curiosity is a gateway to flow
Researchers at the University of New England in Australia did an experiment demonstrating that curiosity is correlated to the flow state. They asked people to create a water conservation program. Those who expressed the most curiosity about the project also spent the most time in a state of flow while working on it.
This study makes sense. When we’re curious about something, we dive into it and stop worrying, for a moment, about ourselves. We are free to immerse ourselves in the topic, and that eases us into the flow state.
If you want to increase your chances of falling into flow, try amping up your curiosity about the topic. Open-ended questions can get you there.
The exercise: Start with open-ended questions
This month’s writing exercise is to write a few open-ended questions as writing preparation.
Open-ended questions don’t have yes/no or short, easy answers. The best ones for this purpose should make you stop and think, and extend beyond what you already know. (We’re trying to spark curiosity, after all.)
Before you begin, write down a few left-field questions about your topic—even if you don’t yet know if or how you’ll answer them in your writing.
Need help coming up with suitably open questions?
- Ask questions from your reader’s perspective—what might they find mysterious or puzzling? Keep asking “why” like a toddler until you reach some bedrock level that you aren’t sure how to get through.
- Ask questions based in an alternate reality: What if we didn’t have computers? What if we spent almost all of our time in a state of flow? What if California had not joined the United States? How could professors make students curious about every assignment?
You get the idea.
See if this exercises awakens your curiosity. Even if flow eludes you, you may enjoy coming up with the questions.
Fun note: Using this technique led me to the opening question: What if there was a magical incantation you could use to drop into a state of flow?
If you like this…
Here’s a link to that study on curiosity and flow.
Read a related post: What Makes You Curious?
Watch the video of this exercise on YouTube.
