Is Mindfulness Essential for Effective Time Management?

In simplest language, mindfulness is being aware.

Mindfulness is awareness about your every emotion and feeling. On a more physical level, mindfulness is awareness about every action that you take.

So how can we apply use mindfulness for effective time management?

But before discussing that we must understand how mindfulness relates to time management and why it is a crucial element of learning to manage your time well.

Let’s dive in. Deep into our innermost thoughts and feelings.

Mindfulness is knowing your thoughts and actions are not on the same page

Each action evokes a response within you, in the form of feelings and emotions. Mindfulness helps you establish the connection between your thought and action and also alert you when there is something broken between the two.

That nagging feeling you have, that something is not right, is your mindfulness trying to warn you. We sometimes call it our conscience or gut feeling, but in reality it’s our mindfulness at play.

Ideally your actions and thoughts must be coordinated. That is, you must do what you think is right and NOT do what you think is wrong. But seldom is this the case in real life.

We often take action according to what others think is right and that is where dissatisfaction and disenchantment with life creeps in.

Or worse, our attitude becomes so casual and fatalistic that we don’t care what we are doing any more. We just do what others expect of us, irrespective of our innermost thoughts and feelings. The result being, our soul stops speaking to us.

Mindfulness bring our innermost feelings to the surface

Through mindfulness we should aim to bring our innermost emotions and feelings and thoughts to the surface so that we start acting according to them.

Mindfulness helps us to look within rather than without for the reason of our existence.

When we say to someone — mind your language — we mean to be aware of what you are speaking and correct it where you are wrong.

Similarly, when we say mindfulness we mean we should be aware of our thoughts and actions. Once that awareness comes, we need to analyze those very thoughts and actions and see if they are taking us towards our stated goals.

Practice meditation everyday

It makes us mindful of our actions and the feelings it evokes within us.

To begin practicing mindfulness, you must focus on something — a thought, a visual, your breath, a body part, a color or even an abstract feeling. It’s simpler when you focus on something tangible to begin with.

So what better than a goal to focus on!

Your goal could be anything from attaining a stress free life to becoming the CEO of your organization. It hardly matters as long as you have quantifiable and measurable goals.

You should be able to tell when you reach the goal. Else you will keep moving towards the goal while shifting the goalposts.

So how can we use mindfulness for time management?

The first step obviously is to set a goal.

Next, set aside some quiet time and think over it. If you find it difficult to do so, write the goals on a piece of paper and keep it in front of you.

Now observe and make a note of how you feel about working towards and achieving the goal. Does the thought motivate you, make you feel happy and ready to begin? Or does it scare you? Are you doubting yourself and your capabilities? Are you indifferent to its success or failure?

Once you are aware of what feelings and emotions the goal evokes in you, you will know whether the goal is worth pursuing or not. And if yes, the path towards it.

So, all set to use mindfulness effectively to achieve your goals.