5 Tips to Integrating Mindfulness to Improve Productivity

Productivity

A lot has been written recently around mindfulness and the data that has been collected for more than 30 years reveals how it can improve productivity at work. From stress reduction to enhanced creativity, starting your own mindful practice can only help you do more, better. So let’s look at five ways to integrate mindfulness into your work day to improve your productivity.

1.    Start Each Work Day with an Intention

It’s easy to get caught up in the frenetic work of running your own business. But taking a moment at the beginning of every day to thoughtfully set an intention for what you want to accomplish, will help you become aware of distracting activities that don’t serve you and will help you stay focused throughout the day.

2.   Micro-Mediation

The human brain can concentrate for about 90 minutes before it needs a break. These breaks are perfect opportunities to do a three-minute meditation practice developed by Dr. Danny Penman, author of Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Finding Peace in a Frantic World. You can find other micro-mediation sources in various mobile apps to help guide you in your meditation practice.

3.    Check In With Yourself

Before each interaction with a coworker or client, start the practice of checking in with yourself. Are you hungry? Are you stressed? Regular check ins will make you become more conscious of your feelings and while you can’t control them, you can accept them. And that will help you control that which you can, your behavior, which can help you boost your interpersonal skills.

4.    Phone-Free Lunch Being connected 24/7 is a major cause of stress today and it prevents us from silent reflection needed to be conscious and aware. While it’s likely impossible to work without your mobile nearby, you can use your lunch-time to reduce your stress by leaving it at your desk, making you more productive once you return to the office.

5.    Stop Multitasking While you may pride yourself on your ability to multitask, the truth is, the human brain has not evolved to support it, so it causes you and everyone else to do a lot of things poorly, rather than one thing well. Sometimes that’s necessary, but to be more productive, you’ll need to focus on a single task. And focus! Focus on how the keys feel on your fingertips, the sounds of the air, your employees laughing. Focus on your surroundings and you’ll find the work pour out of you.