Between March and May this year I was in London for a frenetic law firm internship that had me out of the door really early in the AM and home when everyone else was curled up in front of the television in post dinner satiation.
The work I was doing was challenging and extremely interesting and it was important to me that I gave my very best in terms of energy, efficiency and accuracy when on the job. Although I am in a profession that demands a high level of attention to detail I am a bit of a career chameleon. Whereas I enjoy being a lawyer because it is intellectually rigorous I am also constantly battling distraction. I have always been very susceptible to distractions: not because I lose interest in what I am doing but because my interest lies in too many things. For instance I might be drafting a small document for a case about oil pipes and when I read a reference to oil pricing I will go on the internet and start reading about it and soon my reading would branch out to areas of economics, politics and even social science related to oil trade and pricing. This tendency can make time management a nightmare.
I have tried to reel in the unruly horse of my attention span using a combination of several methods with varying degrees of success. One of these attempts at self discipline which I found quite effective during the above mentioned London internship is using a mindfulness meditation app during my 40 minute commute to office. Initially, I started using the app because I would wake up really early to go to the gym and then hop on the bus to work. The gym gave me a lot of energy which made me feel extra restless during the commute. To counterbalance this I tried using the app which played soothing music and had a very simple guided body scan meditation. The benefits, I soon came to realize went far beyond just calming me down. I started off with a very short 2 minute meditation. Even in those two minutes I could feel my body physically relaxing but over time I noticed that I started to focus more easily. I think this is because during the meditation it is anticipated and even expected that you will get distracted and start thinking of other things instead of paying attention solely to the breath/particular body part. Of course, on my first go I started thinking about strawberries (I am a sucker for smoothies) instead of going through the body scan meditation. However, instead of allowing the subject to feel disappointed at being unable to hold focus, the meditation guide simply instructs that attention should be brought back to the breath gently and compassionately. This piece of encouragement is key to making mindfulness simpler to ease into as it makes the distracted mind feel less inept and more eager to successfully complete the meditation by making room for some amount of 'spacing out'.
After a few sessions of the five minute meditation it became easier and easier for me to focus and when I opened my eyes I noticed more and more of the details of what was going on around me. I had made it a habit to always try and sit at the top level of the bus at the very front so I had a great vantage point to observe people as they hurried on and off. Street photography is something I am passionate about and I was able to capture many great shots because the meditation gave me razor focus once I had completed it. I gradually moved on to twenty minute sessions. The bus could be noisy sometimes and I used headphones but soon found it easy to cut out all the noise and focus only on the breath even when there was a gaggle of school children sitting nearby. The effects on my work were also remarkable. I was able to finish assignments quicker and with greater accuracy. This would free up time for my other pursuits (distractions?) such as writing and photo blogging. On weekends I would get on a random bus, meditate for twenty minutes and get off wherever it would take me. I enjoyed not knowing where I was headed and sometimes chanced upon interesting little corners of London.
In sum, I would highly recommend using whatever time you have, whether it is your morning commute or a five minute break in the day to take a pause and meditate. Think of it as an additional productivity tool that would spur you into action. This may sound counterintuitive since meditation is associated with calming the mind, but this is precisely the kind of replenishment that the mind needs to push beyond the perceived limits of its capabilities thus expanding your capacity to do more and to do it well.
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