How to Train Your Mind

Exploring the Productivity Benefits of Mediation

Chris Bailey

Listen on Audible

1. Productivity Benefits of Meditation

• Determine ROI of productivity activities
• Planning / setting intentions (productivity activity) improves productivity
• Time invested should return multiples of time saved
• Knowledge work - working harder and faster can accomplish less than working slower and more deliberately
• Knowledge work benefits from deeper thinking, creativity, deliberateness
• Knowledge work - difficult to determine productivity
• Productivity not how much is produced but how much is accomplished

2. Training your mind

• Condition your mind for optimal performance
• What is your mind “full” of?
• Mindfulness = notice what’s on your mind, your thoughts, your feelings, your perceptions
• Meditation conditions our minds to step back from random thoughts and avoid overthinking
• Allows you to identify distraction and regain focus
• Increases working memory capacity
• Mind that requires less stimulation is less prone to distraction
• Tending to distraction derails focus = loss of productivity
• Benefits of mediation
• Helps with tasks we are likely to procrastinate on due to overthinking
• Makes us less impulsive
• Makes us more empathetic / better communication / deeper relationships
• Makes us happier
• Helps us think clearly

3. Mindfulness mediation - focuses on breathing

• Focus on breath meditation - this helps train you to develop control and minimise distraction
• When meditating, your mind will automatically slip into thinking about other things
• Train to focus back on breath - Notice / Refocus
• Meditation identifies when you get distracted

4. Thinking too much

• Thinking is not always a good thing e.g. overthinking
• Most thoughts are only worth having one time
• Repeating thought patterns detracts from ability to focus on what’s front of you and hampers productivity
• Hard to shut mind off e.g. sleep time
• The more you notice your overthinking mind, the stiller it can become
• A still mind allows you to see things as they are
• Many thoughts are just reactions and not important
• Thoughts are only valuable if they relate to what we are doing or provides a valuable insight
• Your thoughts are not real, they are echos of the past and fantasies of the future
• We believe the dialogue in our thoughts as true and this affects our emotions
• We are what we think
• Meditation increases relevance of thoughts
• Thoughts are the most powerful force in your life
• Leads you to act differently, change the way you perceive the world around you
• As your mind settles down, you’ll notice thoughts more in your head and this will affect you less
• Meditation helps you notice thoughts instead of experiencing them as if they were real
• Focusing 100% enriches the experience
• Meditation anchors to present moment

5. Making it stick

1. 2 minute rule

• Make sure you spend at least 2 minutes (achievable) to meditate or practice mindful thinking
• “Just show up”
• 2 minutes daily is better than 2 hours weekly

2. Cultivate the right conditions, not the perfect conditions

• Find the right time and energy
• Execute right after another habit, allows it to stick

3. Mind the stories you tell yourself

• Procrastination = giving in to stories we tell ourselves because the task is adverse: too busy, no time, skippable task, do it later
• Repeating everyday (consistency) is important.

4. Be kind - make habit frictionless

• Do favourite habits mindfully, do during simple habits that don’t require engagement, habits you can savoy e.g. coffee time
• Treat yourself to reward based on completion of activity

5. Capture ritual

• Journal / record to do items that surface, so these are not lost or forgotten
• This also unburdens your mind

**6. Meditation makes you happy **

• Happy usually happens due to two strategies

1. Changing what we are experiencing (to become happier) e.g. buy something new

• The problem with this is hedonic adaption / hedonic treadmill
• We get used to a new thing and need more
• We are wired to see deficiencies or negatives
• Possessions provide less happiness

2. Change how we relate to what we experience

• Experience is filtered through our thoughts and expectations
• If something falls short - we feel disappointed
• If equal - we feel no better or worse
• If exceeds = happy
• Meditation helps us to focus on present moment, instead of thoughts and expectations
• Treats experience as the thing that unfolds in front of us, not in our thoughts
• Happiness comes when we desire things as they are
• We can’t engage AND want it to be different at the same time

7. Meditation helps you live longer

• Experience “more time” = more moments, more memories
• You give your full attention
• Life stays same length, but you “live longer” because you are engaged with more of your life

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