What is mindfulness? Mindfulness is to pay full attention to the present moment without judgement. When you are in a meeting, exercising mindfulness means that you are not thinking of the stuff you need to do when you get back to your desk, or daydreaming about what you are going to do after work. Mindfulness means you are 100% committed to the present moment, your attention is 100% focused on what is being said, and people’s behaviours around the table.
Nowadays our computers and phones make it very easy to switch from one thing to another. You can have multiple windows open, you can have multiple tabs in your browser, you can quickly check your messages while waiting for a page to load… Overtime (years) you start having difficulty focusing and working on more complex tasks because your mind keeps wandering. You may already have experienced the shift.
Also, being more mindful means that you will register information that you wouldn’t have noticed before. In the meeting situation, you will detect people’s subtle body movements when they are getting bored or in disagreement, or register information in what is being said that you may have missed. Not only will you be more perceptive but you will remember better too.
But importantly, you will nurture your ability to work on deeper work.
Let’s look at some ways to increase your mindfulness.
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