States of flow can lead to productive work sessions or explain your compulsion to endlessly scroll through social media. The act of pulling the lever turns an uncertain outcome into a certain one. Binary tasks, where the only outcomes are success or failure, aren't very conducive to flow, Melnikoff says. have a yes-or-no outcome, you're better off focusing on a more ambiguous number of consecutive successes or failures, Melnikoff says. "People value the sense that they're being productive and one with the activity that they're engaging in.

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Persons: David Melnikoff, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi —, Melnikoff, doesn't Organizations: Stanford Graduate School of Business, CNBC Locations: States, they're