1. Get clear about your priorities

Prioritisation is a simple thing that we tend to overcomplicate. Redefine your goals; make sure you know what your yearly, monthly and weekly goals are and your priorities will become evident. Spend some time taking an overview of your job. If you cannot make these decisions alone, call in your manager or boss to help you clarify your goals and priorities. Once you have this clear you are on your way to laser sharp focus.

2. Remove the distractions

We live in the age of distraction. Besides, constant connectivity sure doesn’t help the situation. Phones, laptops, tablets: no place is free from technology. Technology is a wonderful thing, but it brings with it some disadvantages. Turn off all notifications of emails, tweets and posts. Take back the control of your time. Check your email or visit social media sites when you have assigned time for it, not whenever someone else wants to get in touch.

Turn off all notifications of emails, tweets and posts. Take back the control of your time

3. Master the interruptions

The easiest way to manage interruptions is by communication. Let those around you know you are trying to focus. This can be done verbally or by an agreed sign, such as the wearing of a specific cap. I suggest wearing headphones. This alerts those around you that you are trying to focus on work while blocking out the sounds with some music. And if someone taps you on the shoulder, be assertive. Remind them you have your headphones on and would like to be given some time to finish your work.

4. Clear your mind

It is difficult to focus when you have a lot on your mind. Do a “mind download”: get everything out of your head so that you can be sure you are not forgetting about anything that needs to be done. Once your tasks are outlined, you can plan and schedule the work that needs to be done. When it’s scheduled, you no longer have to worry about it.

5. Break down large tasks

At times, even after you have created the time and space to concentrate on your work, you are unable to do so. Are you perhaps feeling overwhelmed with the enormity of your task? Sometimes we find it difficult to focus when we have a large piece of work or project to complete. The best thing to do here is to break the task or project down into manageable bits. If you are writing a book, you can try breaking it down into chapters, then assigning headings and subheadings. This will allow you to approach your task in a more organised and disciplined manner.

6. Meditate and practise mindfulness

Meditation is good for the soul, and it also helps you to live more in the present moment. It is therefore a powerful tool for helping you to focus. Living more mindfully you are less likely to allow past regrets or future worries to disturb your present state of mind. Training your mind to be in the here and now is a skill that will improve your ability to focus.

7. Stay hydrated and stay nourished

Eating the right food and staying hydrated can have a powerful effect on how much work you can get done in a day. Not eating the right food at the right time can make you feel lethargic, sleepy or irritable. This can adversely affect your ability to concentrate on your work. Make sure that you eat wholesome meals or munch on healthy snacks whenever you feel hungry. Furthermore, drink plenty of water to ensure you stay hydrated.

Make sure that you eat wholesome meals or munch on healthy snacks whenever you feel hungry

8. Work with your energy

Don’t fight yourself and don’t try to focus at times when it doesn’t suit you. If you focus best in the morning, then work in the morning. If it works for you in the afternoon, then work in the afternoon. Most people work best in the morning when the body’s rhythms dictate more alertness. However, you may not be one of them. Understand yourself and realise that sometimes you don’t have to go with the flow. Figure out what time works best for you and then schedule your work accordingly.

9. Try doing some exercise

Richard Branson, the founder of the Virgin Group, was once asked, “What is your number one productivity tip?” His answer was, “Working out.” Exercise gives you energy. Additionally, the release of endorphins elevates your mood, making you feel more optimistic and motivated. It helps clear the mind, reduce stress and to focus better.

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Over the past 30 years I’ve led thousands of Vipassana meditation retreats all over the world. Travelling so often, I meet a lot of taxi drivers. They’ve always fascinated me, because they work under such stressful conditions. Traffic and aggressive drivers are their daily reality. As a result, they are some of the most stressed-out people I meet. I also find that they are almost always interested in meditation. They know they’re stressed, and know they need help.

The common misconception

A few years ago, I flew to Vancouver for a week-long retreat. I hailed a taxi to my hotel. The driver was frustrated with the traffic. He was from India, and when I told him I was a meditation teacher, he became more agitated. “I can’t possibly be in the present moment while I’m driving!” he said, as though I’d challenged him. “I need to be thinking all the time! And planning!” He was upset by the very suggestion of mindfulness in the midst of thick traffic and honking, as he weaved through the downtown streets.

He was expressing a difficulty that even the most dedicated meditation practitioners encounter: how can we be mindful when life is so busy? On retreats we’re protected, and it’s easier to cultivate mindfulness. In our normal, busy lives, we’ve got things to do. That’s why being mindful in this relative, conceptual world is difficult. The driver was also expressing a common misunderstanding about meditation—that the point in meditation is to stop thoughts. So, you can’t do anything while you meditate.

Truth is you can’t stop thoughts! Even sitting in a cave, human life is mostly composed of our bodies, thoughts, and emotions. Mindfulness meditation is simply an intentional effort to ‘notice’ the thoughts and emotions, and once they become conscious, to stop identifying so deeply with them. This is how we gain freedom, no matter what we’re doing.

Back in the taxi, I told the driver that if he’d like to try some mindfulness meditation, I’d guide him while he drove me to the hotel. He accepted. Traffic light by traffic light, I guided him to become aware of the sensations in his hands, in his body, of the sounds around us, and finally, of his thoughts and feelings, all the while planning his route and driving normally. By the time we pulled up at my hotel, he was quite excited, and didn’t even want me to pay for the ride. As I left the taxi, he turned to me appreciatively and said simply, “I get it!” He understood that he could actually be in the present moment while driving.

I’m around so many people who are interested in mindfulness, and yet mindfulness while driving is almost never stressed. Driving is such a perfect place to learn to maintain an open awareness and respond to your moment-to-moment experience, which is an essential skill set for mindfulness. In the years that followed that taxi ride I began to develop mindfulness techniques for driving. At least in the US, where I live, it couldn’t have come at a more needed time.

Distraction in the connected era

We’ve been hearing a lot about distracted driving in the news since the advent of smartphones, which make texting and emailing so handy that it seems almost everyone on the highway is half-driving and half-communicating with someone else. This cultural norm has had huge implications, and it’s only getting worse.

Recent studies by the Department of Transportation show that drivers who use hand-held devices are four times as likely to get into crashes that are serious enough to injure themselves. Talking on a cell phone while driving, even if it’s hands-free, delays a driver’s reactions as much as having a blood alcohol level at the legal limit of 0.08 per cent. The average texter takes his eyes off the road for nearly a full three seconds at a time. The obvious risks here are borne out by statistics: texters and cell phone talkers get into crashes more often than anyone except the very drunk.

Why do we have such impaired driving habits while simply texting or talking on the phone? It seems like something we should be able to handle by now. The answer lies in the basic facts of attention and neurobiology, which, as it turns out, do not keep pace with technology.

Studies have shown that when we start any task, driving for example, our brain’s anterior prefrontal cortex lights up. This is part of the Executive Network of the brain, and it sends a signal to locate and activate the neurons that are capable of performing that task. This process takes several tenths of a second. When we switch attention from the initial task, driving, to talking on the phone, the brain must go through these exact steps again, in sequence. The anterior prefrontal cortex needs to find and activate the neurons capable of talking on the phone. To shift the attention back to driving requires the same steps as the first time, once again. These switches in attention all take tenths of a second, and the time adds up. Considering that a car going 70mph travels 51f in half a second, we can see that the time it takes for our brain to switch tasks can be very dangerous indeed.

Mindfulness makes your driving safer

Mindful driving is meant to help us become highly responsive to constant change. And that’s what driving is—constant change. If we’re not able to develop these skills, we’re not good drivers. And, frankly, when we drive mindfully, it becomes actually enjoyable to drive again. So much time in our car is lost in trying to distract ourselves from the experience itself. Turning on the radio, calling someone, getting lost in a fantasy—all this because we are afraid to engage with our real experience. We’re always looking for a way to check out. But mindfulness teaches us that engaging with our moment-to-moment experience actually makes us feel alive for the first time—it’s a wonderful feeling, so much richer, more peaceful and simply better than distraction.

We should recognise that ‘distraction’ is omnipresent in our lives these days, facilitated by media, technology, and the orientation of culture itself. Distraction is not only a problem while driving. It’s simply more evidently a problem when we’re piloting a ton of steel at high speeds and less evident when we’re sitting at a computer, or talking to our children. Similarly, road rage is just rage. It’s not like cars have some special property that causes rage. People have rage to begin with, and it becomes quite visible when they have a giant, speeding podium for it.

Years ago, I was in a major car accident. I was stopped at a red light and just as the light turned green and I was about to step on the gas, a pickup truck rear-ended my car at 60mph. The driver was talking to his girlfriend and didn’t even see me stopped there. It’s amazing no one was killed, but the amount of harm that was caused in that brief moment of distraction was massive.

So we need to take more care while driving. Mindful driving will help you be less distracted. Once you learn how to be mindful with one thing, you can learn to apply that to everything in your life—your body, your thoughts, and your emotions. Step by step. We actually can be better drivers. We can actually be better in all aspects of our lives, by training ourselves to be mindful. All it takes is learning and practice.

Last updated on 11^th September 2019

The post Awake at the wheel: How mindfulness makes you a better driver appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.