People say the hardest part about meditating is finding the time to
meditate. This makes sense: who these days has time to do nothing? It's
hard to justify.
Meditation brings many benefits: It refreshes us, helps us settle
into what's happening now, makes us wiser and gentler, helps us cope in a
world that overloads us with information and communication, and more.
But if you're still looking for a business case to justify spending time
meditating, try this one: Meditation makes you more productive.
How? By increasing your capacity to resist distracting urges.
Research shows
that an ability to resist urges will improve your relationships,
increase your dependability, and raise your performance. If you can
resist your urges, you can make better, more thoughtful decisions. You
can be more intentional about what you say and how you say it. You can
think about the outcome of your actions before following through on
them.
Our ability to resist an impulse determines our success in learning a
new behavior or changing an old habit. It's probably the single most
important skill for our growth and development.
As it turns out, that's one of the things meditation teaches us. It's also one of the hardest to learn.
When I sat down to meditate this morning, relaxing a little more with
each out-breath, I was successful in letting all my concerns drift
away. My mind was truly empty of everything that had concerned it before
I sat. Everything except the flow of my breath. My body felt blissful
and I was at peace.
For about four seconds.
Within a breath or two of emptying my mind, thoughts came flooding in
— nature abhors a vacuum. I felt an itch on my face and wanted to
scratch it. A great title for my next book popped into my head and I
wanted to write it down before I forgot it. I thought of at least four
phone calls I wanted to make and one difficult conversation I was going
to have later that day. I became anxious, knowing I only had a few hours
of writing time. What was I doing just sitting here? I wanted to open
my eyes and look at how much time was left on my countdown timer. I
heard my kids fighting in the other room and wanted to intervene.
Here's the key though: I
wanted to do all those things, but I
didn't do them. Instead, every time I had one of those thoughts, I brought my attention back to my breath.
Sometimes, not following through on something you want to do is a
problem, like not writing that proposal you've been procrastinating on
or not having that difficult conversation you've been avoiding.
But other times, the problem is that you do follow through on
something you don't want to do. Like speaking instead of listening or
playing politics instead of rising above them.
Meditation teaches us to resist the urge of that counterproductive follow through.
And while I've often noted that
it's easier and more reliable to create an environment that supports your goals than it is to depend on willpower, sometimes, we do need to rely on plain, old-fashioned, self-control.
For example, when an employee makes a mistake and you want to yell at
him even though you know that it's better — for him and for the morale
of the group — to ask some questions and discuss it gently and
rationally. Or when you want to blurt something out in a meeting but
know you'd be better off listening. Or when you want to buy or sell a
stock based on your emotions when the fundamentals and your research
suggest a different action. Or when you want to check email every three
minutes instead of focusing on the task at hand.
Meditating daily will strengthen your willpower muscle. Your urges
won't disappear, but you will be better equipped to manage them. And you
will have experience that proves to you that the urge is only a
suggestion. You are in control.
Does that mean you never follow an urge? Of course not. Urges hold
useful information. If you're hungry, it may be a good indication that
you need to eat. But it also may be an indication that you're bored or
struggling with a difficult piece of work. Meditation gives you practice
having power over your urges so you can make intentional choices about
which to follow and which to let pass.
So how do you do it? If you're just starting, keep it very simple.
Sit with your back straight enough that your breathing is comfortable
— on a chair or a cushion on the floor — and set a timer for however
many minutes you want to meditate. Once you start the timer, close your
eyes, relax, and don't move except to breathe, until the timer goes off.
Focus on your breath going in and out. Every time you have a thought or
an urge, notice it and bring yourself back to your breath.
That's it. Simple but challenging. Try it — today — for five minutes. And then try it again tomorrow.
This morning, after my meditation, I went to my home office to start
writing. A few minutes later, Sophia, my seven-year-old, came in and
told me the kitchen was flooded. Apparently Daniel, my five-year-old,
filled a glass of water and neglected to turn off the tap. Oops.
In that moment, I wanted to scream at both Daniel and Sophia. But my practice countered that urge. I took a breath.
Then, together, we went into action mode. We got every towel in the
house — and a couple of blankets — and mopped it all up, laughing the
whole time. When we were done soaking up the water, we talked about what
happened. Finally, we all walked together to our downstairs neighbors
and took responsibility for the flood, apologized, and asked if we could
help them clean up the mess.
After that, I had lost an hour of writing. If I was going to meet my
deadline, I needed to be super-productive. So I ate a quick snack and
then ignored every distracting urge I had for two hours — no email, no
phone calls, no cute Youtube videos — until I finished my piece, which I
did with 30 minutes to spare.
Who says meditation is a waste of time?
Originally posted at
http://blogs.hbr.org/bregman/2012/10/if-youre-too-busy-to-meditate.html 
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