When we hear the word ‘mindfulness,’ the first thing that comes to our minds is ‘meditation,’ right? Well, that is true in some points. For some experts, it is a state of mind where you are fully aware and present on the current thing that you are doing. However, there are moments in our lives – be it work or in personal activities, where we seemed lost and stressed out.
Mindfulness at work is crucial to acquire to be able to accomplish the company’s goals. Almost all of the activities related to our jobs need mindfulness, such as joining a team meeting, preparing a report, sending correspondence, and working on a new proposal. Such times require actionable tips to help you find your focus and be mindful at work.
Helpful Tips to Boost your Workday with Mindfulness
Need some boost of mindfulness for your workday? Here are tips that will surely help you:
#1 Start your day right. A day started right can make you zestful and motivated throughout the day. Here’s what you should do when you wake up in the morning. Turn off your alarm and avoid checking your phones right after you open your eyes. Instead, spend some minutes in your bed and be aware of your breath. Stay calm, and while you are doing proper breathing, you will feel more relaxed.
#2 Avoid browsing the web for things not related to your work. When we get bored while doing a task, there is a tendency that we shift our focus to other things. This may include checking social media accounts and watching Youtube videos. You think at first that it’s just to overcome your boredom, but then you realize that it’s almost more than an hour that you have done nothing on your tasks. That means that you lose focus on where you should be giving your full attention.
#3 Make meetings meaningful. From time to time in the office, you are required to join conferences, brainstorming, and team meetings. While doing so, make sure to give your attention to the one who is talking and sharing his insights. Avoid using your phones, checking personal emails, or watching videos on your smartphones. All of these can distract you. Make eye contact when you speak, so you can show that you are genuinely communicating. Before the meeting ends, make sure to do a recap of the points all the members have discussed and agreed upon.
#4 Take your lunch break, mindfully. Your lunch break is not only a time to eat your food. It can also be a time to re-energize, get some fresh air, and relax for some minutes. Go for a walk, and enjoy a quick look at the view outside. You will notice that you feel more energized when you go back to work.
#5 Be mindful with your emails. When you open your emails, and you see that your inbox is bombarded with demanding and urgent emails, you may feel stressed at once. Some studies even revealed that checking emails can increase blood pressure and may affect the heart rate. This is why they also advised changing our mindset towards emails.
How? We need to look at emails as another opportunity or channel to restore and refresh ourselves. It’s also like challenging ourselves to achieve something better on that day. Another critical reminder to become mindful of our emails is to check the emails before sending them. Once you’ve composed your email message, pause and take some deep breaths before sending the email. This will help make sure that you will avoid issues like typing the wrong name or position of the recipient.
#6 Practice some short mindful exercises in the office. Mindful exercises at work have been proven to help our brains to be more mindful. During a busy time in the workplace, a 3-minute exercise for mindfulness can bring a lot of benefits. Inc.com published a post where they shared various ways on how mindfulness can be encouraged in the workplace. These exercises are doable and can aid in rebalancing the nervous system. Also, they help in creating smarter decisions amid various challenging situations.
#7 Avoid multitasking. Multitasking can be good to hear, but this should be avoided if you want to promote mindfulness. This is because, according to some experts, the brain is not engineered to do various tasks at a single time. When you apply this at work, you may lose or skip some critical parts of the processes and may waste time and other resources. It is better to become a single-tasker so that you can give your full focus on a task. This will lead to better efficiency and higher quality of work results.
#8 Get enough rest. We all know that sleep is one of the best forms of rest. A person needs rest to promote efficiency. Make sure to get seven hours of sleep. This can contribute to mindfulness at work. It helps you become more focused and concentrated on tasks, so better work results are generated. When a person lacks rest, the tendency is to become stressful and unable to come up with poor decisions. Successful people, including leaders, entrepreneurs, and coaches, reflect first on how to implement actions and make the best solutions.
#9 Respond to stress in a creative way. We are used to treating stress as a negative part of our life because of its adverse effects. This should be changed to promote mindfulness. Be thankful that stress can energize you. This challenges you and can help sharpen your senses. Also, when you respond to stress creatively, you will be able to have a better perspective at work.
#10 Be grateful. We all know that gratitude can be an effective bridge from our dreams to our accomplishments. When we determine how to practice gratitude, we can achieve a better work attitude, health benefits, and excellent working relationships. The more we feel grateful to everything we have makes us more mindful about our work and opportunities in life.
#11 Learn acceptance. In the core of mindfulness lies acceptance. We can become more mindful in accepting what’s in our present moment. Learn to accept yourself, as well as your skills, capabilities, strengths, and weaknesses. The more you recognize your shortcomings, the more you will acknowledge the fact that not everything can happen in accordance with your plan. That will lead you to strive harder and create better.
#12 Choose to have a growth mindset. It will be better if all people will have a growth mindset. They will believe that their intelligence and skills can be improved and get better. They will have the right mindset to be hardworking and determined. Of course, they will be mindful and get focused on accomplishing their tasks. Success is often more achievable when a growth mindset is applied.
#13 Do it with consistency. There are various tips that you can consider in your life and work to achieve mindfulness. When you start applying them, make sure to have consistency. The more consistent you become, the lesser you can get distracted.
It will be challenging for some individuals to develop mindfulness in the office. There can be busy times, tiring activities, and demanding deadlines. You can also get in touch with a mindful mentor. Experts can aid you to be more aware of the things you should do to achieve mindfulness. You can also look for people in your working place whom you can practise being mindful together. Also, do not forget to use today’s apps, resources, and other technological breakthroughs, which are specially designed to help people become more focused and productive.
