5 Ways to be More Mindful at the Office

My last post was about working mindfully and I was interested to learn how many people are aiming to be mindful at work.  It is easy to see how you can apply the principle of being ‘continuously present with the experience’ with manual working but how about applying this to the office?  Here are some ideas….

1.      Engage your observer

Mindfulness involves awareness, a part of you that observes your mind (and sees when it wanders off), your sensations and your environment.  The part of you that observes is worth engaging with and getting to know.  It has a different perspective than your day to day thinking and this can produce some useful insights.

Whilst we want to be totally involved in the action we’re taking, for mindfulness, we also need to be conscious.  So ‘being lost’ completely and unaware of time and our surroundings isn’t the aim.  To keep our awareness, we need our internal observer on board.

This is also helpful when our work involves thinking, we are capable of both rational thinking and observing the thought process.

2.     Feel feelings

Being mindful involves staying present with current feelings.  So we notice when we’re experiencing different emotions, we are aware of the sensations of the feelings in our body- where they are and how they move.  However we don’t get into stories about the emotions, stories from the past or projections into the future.  

We welcome our feelings rather than judging them as good or bad.  Being mindful involves not reacting to emotions and, using our observer, we are able to respond in a balanced way whatever situation we face.

3.      Practice and build

To practice mindfulness, set an intention to make a gentle effort to be continuously present with a particular task for a set amount of time (you may want to use a timer).  You might find it easier to start with an activity involving movement like filing, data inputting/copy typing / repetitive processes.  Then engage with your internal observer and note the sensations that accompany the movements your making, where you touch other materials and how that feels, what’s happening around you etc.  And when your mind wanders off- perhaps thinking about something you’re filing or contemplating the tea break to come, gently bring it back to the task in hand. 

To develop the practice, you can increase the time periods and/or the complexity of the tasks involved.

4.     Be kind

When your mind wanders or you get distracted, gently being yourself back to the here and now.  Be kind with yourself, adding layers of anger, guilt or shame is not helpful and will take you even further from your intention to be mindful.  This means dropping judgements and criticisms.  What is just is.

This is a great way of minimising stress.

5.     Reflect

Setting particular times to be especially mindful or special prompts to check your mindfulness can help to keep you on track.  At the end of your designated mindful period or perhaps at the end of your day, review how it’s gone.  When did you find it easiest to be mindful?  Are there easier times of day, activities, environments?  How long were you able to sustain this?  How was this different to yesterday?  When did you find it most difficult?  Were there particular prompts that took you off track?  Is there anything you can do differently next time to support your mindfulness?  What benefits are you seeing from working mindfully?