I went to dinner last night with a bunch of other speakers from the No Fluff tour and had a great time. One little interesting tidbit of conversation was about shared flow state. As programmers, we’re all familiar with solo flow state when you’re in the zone, writing code. We were talking about pair programming, which when it’s good, is a shared flow state and can be even richer than solo flow.

I mentioned that another case of this I’ve experienced is playing viola in a quartet. You are very intensely aware of what the other three people are doing (even though that may be evident externally) and you are all trying to accomplish the same thing. It’s exhilarating in a very unique way.

Of course, sex is another good example of shared flow state. :)

Anyone have any others?