The Flow State: When You Forget to Look at the Clock (#691)

Your Turn by Alison Aubrey is scheduled for publication on September 8, 2026. In this blog I have treated Aubrey's published description and third turn framework as inspiration rather than implying that this four-part blog series is a review of the complete published book.

Part 1 - Identity: The Third Act and the Third Turn: When the Career Ends but the Story Doesn't.

Part 2 - Flow: The Flow State: When You Forget to Look at the Clock.

Part 3 - Curiosity: Curiosity: The Fuel for the Third Act.

Part 4 - Connection: Why the Third Act Shouldn't Be a Solo Performance.

Blog At A Glance

Flow is complete absorption.	It occurs when we become so engaged in something that the activity temporarily occupies our whole attention.
Challenge matters.	Flow is most likely when what we are doing stretches our abilities without overwhelming them.
Flow changes our experience of time.	Minutes can become hours because we stop watching ourselves and become absorbed in what we are doing.
Retirement can create an opportunity for flow.	Once careers and obligations recede, we may finally have the freedom to pursue activities because they fascinate us rather than because they are required of us.
The question may not be: What should I do next?	A better question might be: What makes me forget what time it is?

What if the goal of later life is not simply to stay busy, but to become deeply absorbed in things that still stretch us?

There are moments when something rather strange happens to time.

You begin writing at nine o’clock. You look up and it is noon.

There are moments when something rather strange happens to time.

You begin writing at nine o’clock.

You look up and it is noon.

You walk out with a camera intending to spend half an hour photographing birds. Two hours disappear.

You start painting, gardening, playing the piano, woodworking, solving a problem, reading about something that fascinates you - or perhaps writing a blog - and suddenly the rest of the world seems to have gone quiet.

You weren't trying to be productive. You weren't trying to improve yourself. You weren't even trying to be happy.

You were simply absorbed.

Psychologists have a name for this.

Flow.

And perhaps flow tells us something important about how to live the later chapters of our lives.

When the Clock Disappears

The psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi popularized the concept of the flow state: an experience of such deep involvement in an activity that our awareness of ourselves - and sometimes of time itself - temporarily recedes.

Flow is sometimes described as being in the zone.

Athletes know it. Musicians know it. Artists know it.  Writers know it. Surgeons know it.

But flow isn't reserved for elite performers.

A gardener can experience it. So can a cook. A birdwatcher. A photographer.

Someone repairing an old motorcycle. Someone learning French. Someone writing a story for a grandchild.

The activity matters less than what happens between the activity and the person doing it.

The challenge must be difficult enough to demand our attention but not so difficult that it overwhelms us.

Too easy, and we become bored.

Too difficult, and we become anxious.

Somewhere between those two lies a narrow and fascinating territory.

That is where flow lives.

Challenge + Skill

The basic idea is beautifully simple.

Imagine learning to play the piano.

If I can barely locate middle C and you place a Rachmaninoff concerto in front of me, I am unlikely to enter flow. I will probably experience frustration.

But if I have played piano for twenty years and you ask me to play Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, the opposite problem appears.

I am bored.

Flow emerges when the challenge asks just a little more of us than is comfortable.

Our skills say:

I think I can do this.

The challenge replies:

Then show me.

That interaction is important because flow isn't passive pleasure.

Watching television may be pleasant. Sitting beside a swimming pool may be relaxing. Drinking a glass of wine while watching the sunset may be delightful.

But relaxation and flow are not the same thing.

Flow asks something from us.

Attention. Skill. Effort. Curiosity.

And usually a little uncertainty.

Your Turn

This idea takes on particular significance when considered alongside Allison Aubrey's Your Turn: How to Create a Midlife You Love.

Aubrey explores what she calls the third turn - that period when some of the structures that defined earlier adulthood begin to loosen.

Children become independent.

Careers change or end. Professional titles become less important. The calendar becomes less crowded.

And an unexpectedly difficult question appears:

What now?

For decades, the answer was often supplied for us.

Go to school. Get the degree. Build the career. Raise the family. Pay the mortgage. Meet the deadline. Get promoted. Prepare for retirement.

Then retirement arrives - and suddenly nobody is handing us the syllabus.

That freedom can be exhilarating.

It can also be surprisingly disorienting.

From Achievement to Absorption

Perhaps one of the great transitions of later life is a movement from achievement to absorption.

During our careers, much of what we do is measured externally.

Degrees. Promotions. Publications. Awards. Income. Titles. Appointments. Reputation.

They are ways the outside world tells us how we are doing.

But flow operates differently.

Nobody needs to applaud.

In fact, nobody else even needs to know.

The reward is contained within the activity itself.

You photograph the bird because you want to capture the moment.

You paint because you want to see whether you can reproduce the light.

You write because there is an idea you cannot quite leave alone.

You learn French because you want to understand the conversation at the next table.

You play the piano because somehow an hour at the keyboard disappears.

This may be one of the quiet freedoms of growing older.

We can increasingly do things because we love doing them.

Retirement's Great Opportunity

We often talk about retirement in terms of what disappears.

The job disappears. The office disappears. The meetings disappear. The professional identity begins to fade.

But something else appears.

Time.

And time may be one of the most valuable resources we have ever possessed.

The question is what we do with it.

There is a temptation to fill it.

Committees. Appointments. Lunches. Travel. Television. Social media. Errands.

A full calendar can certainly prevent boredom.

But a full calendar and a full life are not necessarily the same thing.

Perhaps the more interesting challenge is not simply to fill time, but occasionally to lose track of it.

That is a very different ambition.

Curiosity May Be the Doorway

Aubrey's exploration of life beyond the traditional markers of achievement repeatedly returns to curiosity, experimentation and rediscovery.

That makes sense.

Because we cannot command ourselves into flow.

We cannot write in the diary:

2:00 - 4:00 PM: Experience Flow.

Flow tends to emerge indirectly.

We follow something that interests us.

Then we become better at it.

As our skill increases, we seek a greater challenge.

The greater challenge demands greater concentration.

And somewhere along the way, we look up and discover that two hours have disappeared.

Perhaps this is why curiosity matters so much as we age.

Curiosity gives us somewhere to go.

And unlike ambition, curiosity does not require a destination.

The Third Act Doesn't Need a Résumé

For much of adult life we accumulate credentials.

By the third act, perhaps we should accumulate experiences.

There is something wonderfully liberating about becoming a beginner again.

Take a painting class. Learn to identify birds. Write a short story. Learn an instrument. Study astronomy. Grow tomatoes. Take photographs. Learn Italian. Build something. Teach someone.

Try something at which you may initially be quite bad.

The objective isn't necessarily mastery.

It certainly isn't another line on the résumé.

The objective is engagement.

And perhaps that is one of the paradoxes of flow.

We may spend much of life trying to become somebody.

Flow gives us occasional relief from having to think about ourselves at all.

For an hour or two, the résumé disappears.

So does age. So does status. So does yesterday. So does tomorrow.

There is only the thing in front of us.

What Makes You Forget the Clock?

Perhaps, then, there is a better question to ask ourselves as we enter the later stages of life.

Not:

How will I keep busy?

Not:

What should I accomplish next?

And perhaps not even:

What is my purpose?

Those questions can become surprisingly burdensome. They make the third act sound suspiciously like another job.

Instead, try something simpler.

What do I do that makes me forget to look at the clock?

That question may lead somewhere interesting.

Because the activities that absorb us often reveal something about ourselves that résumés cannot.

They tell us where curiosity remains alive. Where challenge still attracts us. Where our abilities still want to grow. And where the outside world temporarily loses its importance.

Allison Aubrey's idea of the third turn suggests that the later chapters of life need not be about winding down. They can be about rediscovering what gives us energy, curiosity and momentum.

Perhaps one of the best measures of that life is surprisingly simple.

Every now and then, we should be able to look at the clock and say:

Good grief.

Is that the time?

And smile.

A Question for Readers

When was the last time you became so absorbed in something that you completely lost track of time, and what were you doing?

Aubrey herself describes the third turn not as winding down but as a period for renewed curiosity, purpose and adventure.

Further Reading

Aubrey, Allison. Your Turn: How to Create a Midlife You Love. Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster, 2026.

LeCouteur, Rick. The Third Act and the Third Turn: When the Career Ends but the Story Doesn't. https://www.ricklecouteur.com/post/the-third-act-and-the-third-turn-when-the-career-ends-but-the-story-doesn-t-690

Next: Part 3: Curiosity: The Fuel for the Third Act.

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