Flow: A dichotomy in two Apps

I have a weekly ritual on Wednesdays: I browse the App stores to see what’s changed. Usually I find something intriguing or worth playing around with, but these are seldom really significant ‘Wow, my life has changed’ Apps. In fact, what often grabs me more about the Apps is the concept they’re exploring rather than the programme itself. Take ‘The Mesh’ for example, which is the current Free App of the Week on iTunes. The beauty and power of the App lie in its simplicity. It’s not complicated, and yet it’s immensely engrossing. I found myself spending hours trying to up my score, and then suddenly I realised I was doing mathematics. To add context to that statement, you need to understand that mathematics and I are like estranged family members: we know we can’t really ever escape one another, but if we never have to engage in conversation, that’s just fine. Nevertheless, at 23:00 last night, there I was, propped up in bed trying to work out how 7, 5, 3 and 2 were going to get me to 4. As it happens, I couldn’t work it out, and my streak ended on a measly final score of 32. I will persevere again tonight!

'The Mesh'

Now, what intrigues me so much about ‘The Mesh’ is the fact that I became completely engrossed in a very short space of time. The nature of the game means there is no ‘undo’ button, and an incorrect pairing can be one’s complete undoing for the levels to come. As a consequence, one must spend time assessing the whole scenario, planning moves and anticipating outcomes. The mental arithmetic is not complicated (well, it hasn’t been for the levels I’ve managed to reach), but having to work out multiple scenarios in one’s head becomes a challenging prospect. For the example above, there are a number of different things I could try:

7 - 3 = 4; 5+2 = 7… doesn’t work

7-5 = 2; 2+2 = 4, 3… doesn’t work

3-2 = 1; 5-1=4; 7… doesn’t work

You get the idea.

Before even starting to play the level, one has to run all these simulations in one’s head. The feeling of triumph when one gets it correct is intoxicating and I’m left utterly engrossed. And it’s maths.

The second App which has caught my attention this week is ‘Flowstate’ on the Mac App store. While I’ve not yet taken the plunge and purchased the App, it’s premise is certainly food for thought. Basically, Flowstate creates the perfect environment in which to create written pieces by preventing the clutter that so often prevents us from actually completing what we’re writing. The creators posit that forcing separation between the creation and editing processes encourages the completion of tasks. The App works by asking users to select a time period to be ‘locked’ into the App. Once the time has been selected, the user must write continuously. A pause of more than 5 seconds will delete everything that has been written during the session. Furthermore, trying to exit the session before time is up will also delete everything. Quite an unnerving prospect for those of us who are used to agonising over just about every sentence we type. I’m certainly guilty of spending ages and ages staring at the screen trying to figure out the way forward. With Flowstate, there’s no time for that—at least not while you’re writing. You have to keep going, even if it’s not going to make it into the final edit. 

And that’s the whole point: it doesn’t have to be perfect. So often we get utterly caught up on ensuring that the end product is a work of perfection that we end up not finishing it, or, even worse, not starting in the first place. Flowstate prevents that from happening by forcing action, but making us let go of the obsession with perfection and simply getting us to write write write and think later. Working on a finished piece and making small tweaks here and there is far less daunting than staring at a blank page for ages, and the prospect of everything vanishing before one’s eyes means we keep pushing onwards until we have something with which to work.

Both of these Apps look at the idea of focus and flow in a different way: the first requires measured, thought-through selection, because there is no going back while the second is almost the polar opposite: go for it without reservation and deal with the aftermath later. I think both of them have a place in education. Our students should know when to apply themselves to one task with utter focus and careful consideration, especially when it comes to dealing with other people, because often we cannot take things we’ve said back after they have been said (or tweeted). Conversely, we should also be encouraging our students to dive into tasks with a sense of abandonment. Increased digitisation means that we can undo just about everything we create within Apps or programmes and our work can be altered if and when it needs to be. We need to give students the freedom to fail and not be too perturbed by this, because refining is often a better learning experience than the initial creation is. I’ll look at the culture of refinement and criticism in another blog, but for now, I think it’s worth pondering how we can use these two kinds of flow in our teaching and indeed, in our own lives.