Some people assume mindfulness is something you do away from work, in your spare time. But have you ever considered what working mindfully could do for your working day? Working mindfully means paying full attention to the task at hand, whether it is writing an email, attending a meeting, strategy planning or any one of the other myriad tasks that comprise your working day.

Multi-tasking is a fallacy:
What is multi-tasking? It is jumping from this to that without really paying attention to any of those shiny attractive tasks. It is a huge time waster because each time you switch tasks your brain has a lot to do to re-orient itself, it requires effort, you may not be aware of it, but it drains your mental energy ultimately reducing your productivity.

So instead of trying to do more than one thing at a time in order to feel productive, focus purely on one task. This not only helps increase productivity but it also ensures that you are focused on what you are doing at that moment. You’ll be able to apply all your senses to what you are doing, heightening the experience and putting yourself in the moment. You may find it useful to set a time limit for each task allowing you to move on. Something to experiment with?
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Give yourself a break:
Spend at least 5 minutes every day doing absolutely nothing. This will help you clear your mind and relax. You can do this anywhere. Simply stop doing whatever you are involved in and do nothing. Clear your mind and focus on what is happening at that moment. Use all of your senses to experience it:

• Notice what you see - the colours, shapes, shadows, contours, what is close to you, what is far from you.
• Listen in to all the sounds around you, the quality of the sounds, pitch, rhythm, become aware of the sounds you hadn’t noticed.
• Pay attention to the feeling of your body, where it connects to your clothing, the sense in your joints, the temperature of your skin.
• Notice any emotion you are experiencing, don't judge it, simply notice it.
  
• Bring your awareness to your breathing, feel it.
• Enjoy doing nothing.

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You might even find it beneficial to take a 1 or 2 minute break between tasks to really let go the last task and bring your whole self and focus to the next one. Why not give it a go?

If you would like to know more you might find this book of value: 
Mindfulness at Work: How to Avoid Stress, Achieve More and Enjoy Life!

Or this TedTalk may give you some ideas for your work. 

How do you plan to work mindfully? Let me know in the comments.

Mindfulness is a useful tool for reducing levels of stress and anxiety. By reducing levels of stress and anxiety you can help yourself create a more fulfilling life. While sitting meditation forms a significant part of it there are other things you can do to develop the skill of mindfulness and harness its power in your everyday life.

Concentrate:

• Concentration is a key skill required for mindfulness. Start by focusing on your breath and quiet your mind. This is easier said than done. What I mean by focusing on your breath is: Pay attention to your breath, notice yourself breathing in and out. Become aware of the air as it passes in through your nose and how it does not feel the same as you breathe out - the temperature changes, did you notice that? As you breath in; where in your chest are you breathing, up high in your chest or lower down your rib cage? Should stray thoughts pop into your consciousness - as they will - then bring your attention back to your breathing. Practice every day, even just for five minutes, and you will soon find your concentration levels increase.

Sit:

• Start your day by sitting quietly, comfortably balanced and concentrate on your breathing, letting any stray thoughts just float away on your out breath. Sitting meditation plays a significant part in mindfulness and by practicing every day you will develop your concentration, your ability to focus on your breathing and clearing your mind. This will set you up for a more productive day ahead.

If you ant to discover more about mindfulness you might find this a useful book to read: 
Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World

Thinking is like a bit like writing; it is a process. A lot depends on the order in which you do things either on the page or in your head. So if you were to write, “The dog bit the man” I suspect you would expect your reader to have a different experience, than if you wrote, “The man bit the dog” even though you have used the same words and only lightly changed the order. So as you can see the order and sequence is important. 

Also if you were to add colour to your to writing by using adverbs and adjectives – you do remember those, don’t you – by saying “The big black dog charged the man and grabbed him by the arm…?” now you have even more of a response from the reader, possibly even a slight quickening of the heart rate (an unconscious physiological response) and a more detailed picture in the mind’s eye.  

In your mind you can also adjust the quality of your thinking by adding or removing colour or other details. Now that may strike you as a bit odd. But just think about it for a minute – let’s pretend you have decided to buy a new barbeque and you want to get a gas barbeque but definitely not a charcoal one because you think they are slow, smoky and often don’t deliver a great result. As you think about it now, notice the pictures you are making inside your head....I suspect the picture of the food from the gas barbeque looks bright, big and maybe even a movie, in other words attractive, while the food from the charcoal one looks less appetising. Or think about ordering food in a restaurant, you possibly have a picture in mind of what the food will look and taste like. Now of course if the served food does not match your imagined picture - depending on the qualities of your reference pictures - you will be either disappointed or delighted. Of course this may be just my mind’s eye talking. 

You might be thinking, so what? Just think about it, as you discover you can change the picture qualities in your mind’s eye you can learn how to change your motivation, make your goals more compelling and generally make it easier for yourself and others to achieve their goals and ambitions. So as you think about a future event now and if you discover you are feeling a bit unsure about it, just ask yourself are you seeing it completing the way you want it i.e. successfully? If not change your outcome picture until you are seeing the best result for you and notice how it feels. You might find any anxiety you had been experiencing simply dissolves and you have positive anticipation now.

Experiment Alert :-)
As you choose to begin noticing your anticipatory pictures more I would love to hear what you discover, so do comment below.

I don't know about you but I seem to be hearing more and more people talking about burnout. People in business, at work, in families. It is tough for the people going through burnout themselves and it is also tough for their families, colleagues and friends.

How do you know you, a colleague or a family member is close to burnout? You know because they are "not themselves". During burnout you can feel; exhausted, helpless, trapped, irritable and quick to inappropriate anger, with that little voice in your head going "why bother". It is a scary, uncomfortable place. You might notice