live in the present

1. When I get home I put my phone down. When I’m at home I want to be home. I don’t want to leave part of my brain at the office, I want to be home. One way I do that is when I get home I take my phone out of my pocket and put it on the shelf with my keys. I’ll leave the ringer on — if someone needs to get a hold of me they can. But just setting it down helps me to leave my work behind. It also means that when I get bored it’s not right there to distract me. It’s a little thing, but a first step. 2. I schedule time to do nothing. This one is really hard for me. I like to get things done, I like to get things off my list. But it really helps me to do nothing sometimes. I go for a walk in the woods, sit down by the lake, and just sit with my thoughts. At first it felt stupid, unproductive, a little weird. But over time, I’ve come to appreciate the quiet that comes if I stick with it. Practicing being still makes me so much more able to go back and find that place of stillness when I really need it in the middle of a work day. 3. When I’m on the phone, I shut my eyes. It’s hard for me not to get distracted, even when I’m on the phone! I start fiddling with email, or I get distracted by twitter, or I… Well, I get distracted. When I shut my eyes, 90% of those distractions go away, leaving me free to attend to the caller. If I don’t want to shut my eyes, I’ll take notes — not because I need to look back at them, but because I want to pay attention to the call. 4. I turn off all notifications. It’s easy enough for me to get distracted, I don’t need electronics to steal my focus. So I’m maniacal about turning off notifications. I don’t get any notifications on my phone (it still rings for calls and texts, but nothing else) or on my computer. No beeps or pop-ups for email, IM, downloads, event reminders, none of that stuff. I need to be with the people I’m with, not the people sending me emails! Still not convinced? Try to engage in some creative task while you have your kids and kin texting you the whole time. How did that work? Case closed. 5. I Listen with my whole body. Many years ago I was at a workshop where they were teaching this technique called mirroring, where you would adapt your posture, body position, even facial expression and respiration rate to match the person you are listening to. So if they leaned forward, you’d lean forward, if they put their hands on the table, you’d put your hands on the table. Mirroring never had any magical influencing powers for me, but I did find that it made me a better listener. When I’m concentrating on mirroring it quiets my mind. I’m not thinking about what I’m going to start talking about as soon as the other person stops talking, instead I’m right there with them.