A discussion of Flow and programmers, from DevX.com, in an article entitled, “Understanding the Psychology of Programming“:
“Flow can only be broken if an interruption requires a programmer to mentally change contexts. This means that you can tap a programmer on the shoulder and ask them what they’re doing, or even suggest a line of reasoning to them, and everything will be fine. But if you ask them where their timesheet is, you’ve broken it… Drop out of the context, and it takes a while to restore it.”
While the article specifically deals with programmers and programming, it’s insights are applicable to any creative enterprise, and certainly to the creation of instruction.

• How can we avoid that deadly drop from context while developing e-learning?
• What is the designer’s context and environment?
• What tools do we need to develop to move the design along and keep the designer in the “flow” state?
• What tasks are intrusive on this state?

As Bryan Dollery, the author of the piece at DevX says, “I don’t give a fig if this costs you more money; the potential benefits are huge. If you continue to view the world as a risk/value proposition then you’ll continue to produce mediocre results. Your software is produced by humans; learning something about their psychology is a good idea.”