Switch Off to Power Up: How Psychological Detachment Drives Flow at Work

This article is a (slightly adapted) excerpt from my upcoming book, Mastering Flow.

“The benefits of flow at work can hardly be overstated. When people experience flow at work, they experience their jobs more as meaningful callings, and are willing to go above and beyond their job descriptions. In addition, they are more likely to develop their skills, becoming better able to perform complex tasks and create value. This is great for the people doing the work, as they derive both pleasure and meaning from what they do, and great for the company (for obvious reasons).” —Jef van den Hout and Orin Davis, flow researchers

Flow at work is associated with many positive outcomes, including productivity, job performance, job satisfaction, job commitment, and creativity. [1] Flow researchers have recently described flow as a “healthy path to productivity” and even as the “holy grail of business success for individual employees, teams, and companies.” [2] (For a detailed discussion of the benefits, see our article on the performance benefits of flow or chapter 11 in Mastering Flow.)

Because flow at work is so beneficial, researchers have been investigating the factors that facilitate and hinder the occurrence of flow in the workplace. In today’s article, an adapted excerpt from Mastering Flow, we’ll look at one specific factor that has been shown to influence flow at work.

Recover Today, Experience More Flow Tomorrow

In 2014, a group of researchers examined whether the state of being recovered in the morning had an impact on flow throughout the day. [3] The researchers sent participants (programmers, software engineers, and web designers) four daily surveys for an entire workweek from Monday through Friday. The first survey, filled out at the beginning of every workday, asked participants to indicate on a scale from 1 (not true at all) to 5 (very true) how much they agreed with the following four statements: ‘‘This morning I feel well rested,’’ ‘‘This morning I feel physically refreshed,’’ ‘‘This morning I feel mentally refreshed,’’ and ‘‘This morning I am filled with new energy.’’ This indicated the participants’ state of being recovered.

The next three surveys were sent out throughout the rest of the workday: one in the morning, another around noon, and the last in the afternoon. These were experience sampling forms (see chapter 7 in Mastering Flow for an explanation) that asked participants what they were currently doing and tapped their level of flow.

The researchers found that participants reported higher levels of flow during programming activities (e.g., programming or fixing bugs) than administrative activities (e.g., bookkeeping or writing invoices) and personal activities (e.g., taking a break or chatting with a colleague). This confirms that certain types of activities are more conducive to flow than others.

But what about the recovery aspect? As expected, the more recovered a person felt in the morning, the more flow they experienced during work that day. Better recovery translated into more flow. This makes intuitive sense, of course. When we feel refreshed, mentally sharp, and full of energy, we are more likely to experience flow than when we feel tired. Feeling recovered, whether in the morning or at any other time of day, facilitates flow.

Therefore, if we want to get the most out of our flow activities, we must recover well in the periods between these activities. For example, if we want to experience more flow at work, we must recover well during nonwork time—during breaks, evenings, weekends, and vacations.

In the remainder of this article, I’m going to share a key factor that influences how restorative our nonwork time is. Take care of this factor and you’re well on your way to recover from work today and experience more flow tomorrow.

“The Most Powerful Driver of Recovery”

Psychological detachment is defined as the subjective experience of leaving work behind—to forget about work and switch off during non-work time. [4] It describes the sense of being away and mentally disengaged from work.

A large body of research has shown that if you keep engaging with work (e.g., through email) or keep thinking about work during nonwork time you recover less well than if you fully let go of work-related activities and thoughts. Psychologically detaching from work is so important that some researchers consider it “the most powerful driver of recovery.” [5]

On evenings when employees detach well from their work, they experience fewer negative emotions, more positive emotions, higher levels of serenity and vigor, and lower levels of work-family conflict. [6] They also sleep better and wake up the next day feeling more recovered, positive, motivated, energized, and less fatigued. The same goes for weekends and vacations.

In the long run, employees who consistently detach well from work report lower levels of psychological strain and exhaustion, fewer physical complaints, a lower need for recovery, higher levels of motivation and vigor at work, and higher overall life satisfaction. [7]

If you’re serious about recovering from work, truly leave it behind. Maintain strong boundaries between your work and your private life. Here are some quick tips to do that:

• Don’t check work-related emails on evenings, weekends, and vacations.
• Create separate email accounts for work and your personal life.
• Use separate laptops and phones for work and your personal life.
• During nonwork time, engage in activities that foster detachment (e.g., exercise, play, or social interactions).
• During nonwork time, engage in hobbies that allow you to experience flow (experiencing flow during nonwork time helps you detach from work and thereby helps you experience more flow at work the next day).

Bottom line: Detach from work today, and you’re more likely to experience flow tomorrow.

This article is a (slightly adapted) excerpt from my upcoming book, Mastering Flow. If you want to be notified when the book is available, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter.