Review of Daniel Pink's Drive

I am interested in motivation and drive in general. Who isn't? Getting up and going and convincing other people to do the same is a bit of a holy grail.
I have read a number of books on this theme so far. The main one is Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Yes I did look up the spelling of that). In it the author talks about that state we get into some times when we are learning something, carrying out a task that interests us intently. An example used is a man looking at his collection of rocks - geology is his thing. He starts nice and early and before he realises it the light has faded because its evening time. We have all been there at some time (just maybe not with rocks on our kitchen table), and we want to be there again. We are usually at our best in this flow state. Producing the most, being the most creative and generally just maximising what it means to be ourselves.
So one of the main themes in this book (Drive) is maximising this flow state as a way to improve the quality of our lives. To this end I am going to start monitoring how often during the day I am in a flow state. I am pretty much in control of my own time at the moment, so there is nothing to stop me doing the things that give me the biggest flow hit. I am going to put together an Android app which asks me on a few random occasions during the day if I am in flow or not. Tracking this over time should give me an idea of whether or not I am increasing the time spent in flow.
Flow for me will probably come from learning new stuff. Particularly programming tasks. We will see how that goes.
The other thing that Pink reckons improves the quality of our lives is control over what we do, when we do it and how we do it. Again I have nobody to blame but myself on this one. If I am not steering my one man boat in the correct direction, its my own fault.
If you want to grab a copy of this book it is available here.
There was not really anything new in this for me. I had even heard of variations of most of the stories used to illustrate his points, however it was still worth reading. I find that even if a book does not break new ground for you, if it reinforces some important points - and this book does - then it is worth the read.