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Mindfulness at Work

Mindfulness at Work

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9 views2 pages

Mindfulness at Work

Mindfulness at Work

Uploaded by

aiulica20
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Mindfulness at Work

by Rasmus Hougaard, Jacqueline Carter, and Gillian Coutts


Rotman Management Magazine, Winter 2016
The following is an excerpt from One Second Ahead: Enhance Your Performance at Work with
Mindfulness (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015) by Rasmus Hougaard, Jacqueline Carter, and Gillian Coutts,
reprinted with permission in 'The Health Issue' of Rotman Management Magazine.

Cell phones, tablets, emails and texts place constant demands on our attention. According to leading
management thinker Tom Davenport, “Understanding and managing attention is now the single most
important determinant of business success.”

Researchers studying the mind’s natural tendency to wander have calculated that, on average, our mind
wanders 46.9 per cent of the time. In other words, while we are at work, 53.1 per cent of the time, our mind is
‘on task’; the rest of the time, it’s off task.

In recent years, business leaders have recognized a centuries-old route to mental effectiveness that is very
powerful in an Attention Economy: mindfulness. The central characteristics of mindfulness are sharp
focus and open awareness.

Sharp focus is the ability to concentrate single-pointedly on any object of choice for as long as you want, with
minimal effort. Training sharp focus provides the benefit of being fully present with other people or tasks.

Open awareness is the ability to see clearly what is happening in your mind and make wise choices about
where to focus your attention.

Taking regular ‘mindful performance breaks’ is both a time-efficient and nourishing way to maintain focus and
clarity. A mindful performance break is basically a brief mindfulness training session. And by brief, I mean
about 45 seconds. Try this, once every hour during the work day:

1. Let go of your activities. You don’t need to go anywhere special. Close your eyes or keep them open,
whichever you prefer.

2. Direct your full attention to your breath. For three breath cycles:
• Breathe in while noticing your breath; breathe out while relaxing your shoulders, neck and arms.
• Breathe in while focusing fully on your inhale; breathe out while focusing on the exhale.
• Breathe in while enhancing the clarity of your attention; breathe out while maintaining clarity.

3. Let go of the exercise. Return to your work with renewed relaxation, focus and clarity.

While mindful breaks are easy to do, they’re just as easy to forget. We have made it easy for you to
incorporate this break into your daily routine by developing an app for your smartphone or tablet that will give
you a reminder once per hour. You can find to it on our website (potentialproject.com) — or go directly to the
app store and search The Potential Project.

Rotman offers a two-day interactive course on mindfulness and leadership training, Search Inside Yourself,
each summer. This article was excerpted from the Winter 2016 issue of Rotman Management. To subscribe:
www.rotmanmagazine.ca.

See more articles like this.

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