Andre Ivanchuk

Complacency and apathy are the beginning of a downward spiral; for individuals and organizations. In the context of productivity and accomplishment, a forward tension exists between two factors; Skill Level and Challenge Level.

Skill – the ability to do something well; expertise
Challenge – a task or situation that tests someone’s abilities

Both factors are organic, ever-changing and expandable. Therefore individuals and organizations have the ability to maximize the output of ideas, innovations and productivity by identifying and intentionally balancing the Skill and Challenge levels.

Flow theory, coined by Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, is the mental state of performance when an individual with a task at hand experiences energized focus, complete involvement, and achievement.

Flow is focused motivation. It is a single-minded immersion and represents perhaps the ultimate in harnessing the emotions in the service of performing and learning. In flow the emotions are not just contained and channeled, but positive, energized, and aligned with the task at hand. To be caught in the ennui of depression or the agitation of anxiety is to be barred from flow. The hallmark of flow is a feeling of spontaneous joy, even rapture, while performing a task. (Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman)

According to Mihaly, three condition must be present to achieve Flow:

1. One must be involved in an activity with a clear set of goals. This adds direction and structure to the task.
2. One must have a good balance between the perceived challenges of the task at hand and his or her own perceived skills. One must have confidence that he or she is capable to do the task at hand.
3. The task at hand must have clear and immediate feedback. This helps the person negotiate any changing demands and allows him or her to adjust his or her performance to maintain the flow state.

If one possesses highly developed and unique skills, and applies the expertise in a non-challenging context – feelings of relaxation, boredom and dissatisfaction will accompany the task, ultimately leading towards apathy and complacency. Similarly, if one places themselves in a highly challenging situation without having the right skill set, feelings of anxiety and worry will arise – also resulting in apathy and complacency.

Therefore, by balancing high levels of Skill and Challenge, an individual and organizations are able to generate high output of ideas, productivity, satisfaction and forward momentum.

Given the organic nature of Skill and Challenge, one must continually strive to develop skills, and apply the skills in highly challenging situations.

A key to generating creative ideas is to train your mind to think in a particular way. Naturally, we revert to safe thinking; our ideas need to make sense; we doubt in our ability; we wonder what others might think. In actuality, we limit the ideas and predetermine their failure.

If the mind is trained to think freely, without boundaries – you will be in the position to generate limitless ideas.

A simple technique:

For the next thirty days, force yourself to come up with outrageous ideas – ideas that may not necessarily make sense at all. The goal is to train to mind to break the boundaries that we naturally set up that confide our idea generation. Note each idea. Sketch it out.

Several pointed to keep in mind:

The journaling is only for you, no one else will see this.
Feel free to explore existing products & services, and look for ways to improve them.
Look at your everyday life, be sensitive to the things that you cannot find a feasible solution to.

A simple solution I’ve developed for keeping my inbox clean and free of clutter. The key is to take immediate action, whether you are constantly monitoring your emails or have designated times throughout the day to check your emails.

In this attachment, I’ve described in detail the different scenarios and actions to be taken as soon as your inbox is opened. These are not the only scenarios, but will serve as a solid starting point.

In general here are four scenarios of immediate action to take with an email:

A. Read the subject line or the from address of the email without opening the email. Based on this information, delete the email immediately.

B. Open the email, read it. If there’s no clear call-to-action or the information serves no purpose to you, delete it.

C. Open the email, read it. Respond to the email with the appropriate answer, information, etc. If no further action is needed, delete it.

D. Open the email, read it. Respond to the email with the appropriate answer, information, etc. If action is requited, either for you to do something (a task), or a follow up to the action (a reminder) – then convert it to an action with a specific deadline or reminder time. Then delete the email.

As always, there’s exceptions to the rules:

If the email is educational or informative in nature, create a “Reading” sub-folder in your inbox and store it until you have a scheduled time for reading and learning. Also, if the email contains a link of interest, launch the link in a web browser and bookmark it in a “Temporary” folder to return to it later.

Each scenario ends with the email finding it’s way into the trash bin.