Stock and flow” is an economic concept that writer Robin Sloan has adapted into a metaphor for media: “Flow is the feed. It’s the posts and the tweets. It’s the stream of daily and sub-daily updates that remind people you exist. Stock is the durable stuff. It’s the content you produce that’s as interesting in two months (or two years) as it is today.

Stock and flow” is an economic concept that writer Robin Sloan has adapted into a metaphor for media: “Flow is the feed. It’s the posts and the tweets. It’s the stream of daily and sub-daily updates that remind people you exist. Stock is the durable stuff.

You can turn your flow into stock.

A blog is the ideal machine for turning flow into stock: One little blog post is nothing on its own, but publish a thousand blog posts over a decade, and it turns into your life’s work.

Flow means that inventories in the operation are moving. When inventory is not moving, inventory accumulates. Accumulation of inventory takes up space. Therefore, an intuitive way to achieve better flow is to limit the space allowed for inventory to accumulate. To achieve better flow, Ford limited the space allotted for work-in-process between each two work centers.

Flow: a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience is so enjoyable that people will continue to do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.

Flow is an optimal state in which you feel totally engaged in an activity...In a state of flow, you're neither bored nor anxious, and you don't question your own adequacy. Hours pass without your noticing.

Technically, flow is defined as an optimal state of consciousness where we feel our best and perform our best. And you've probably had some experience with this state. If you've ever lost an afternoon to a great conversation or become so involved in a work project that all else was forgotten, then you've tasted the experience. Flow describes these moments of total absorption, when we become so focused on the task at hand that everything else falls away. Action and awareness merge. Time flies. Self vanishes. All aspects of performance — mental and physical — go through the roof. We call this experience flow because that is the sensation conferred. In the state, every action, each decision, leads effortlessly, fluidly, seamlessly to the next. It's high-speed problem solving; it's being swept away by the river of ultimate performance.

Your Income Statement tells you (1) how much money you’re spending and where; and(2) how much money you’re receiving and from where. Flow gives you the same information as the Income Statement, plus it tells you when you’re spending and receiving money — that is, Flow is an Income Statement moving through time.

Flow is more than an optimal state of consciousness — one where we feel our best and perform our best — it also appears to be the only practical answer to the question: What is the meaning of life? Flow is what makes life worth living. “There are moments that stand out from the chaos of the everyday as shining beacons,” wrote Csikszentmihalyi, alongside psychologist Susan Jackson, in Flow in Sports. “In many ways, one might say that the whole effort of humankind through millennia of history has been to capture these fleeting moments of fulfillment and make them part of everyday existence.

In my experience, your stock is best made by collecting, organizing, and expanding upon your flow.

Flow is more than an optimal state of consciousness — one where we feel our best and perform our best — it also appears to be the only practical answer to the question: What is the meaning of life? Flow is what makes life worth living.

Technically, flow is defined as an optimal state of consciousness where we feel our best and perform our best. And you’ve probably had some experience with this state. If you’ve ever lost an afternoon to a great conversation or become so involved in a work project that all else was forgotten, then you’ve tasted the experience. Flow describes these moments of total absorption, when we become so focused on the task at hand that everything else falls away. Action and awareness merge. Time flies. Self vanishes. All aspects of performance — mental and physical — go through the roof.

Technically, flow is defined as an optimal state of consciousness where we feel our best and perform our best. And you've probably had some experience with this state. If you've ever lost an afternoon to a great conversation or become so involved in a work project that all else was forgotten, then you've tasted the experience. Flow describes these moments of total absorption, when we become so focused on the task at hand that everything else falls away. Action and awareness merge. Time flies. Self vanishes. All aspects of performance — mental and physical — go through the roof.