ONE BREATH AT A TIME

by Nik List

DIVIDED ATTENTION

How much of your attention is here, now, reading these words? 
90%? 30%? 5%?

Where is the rest of your attention? Listening to its own chatter? Wondering, commenting, pondering, mulling over something that happened 2 minutes ago or 20 years ago? 

As we closely monitor our attention throughout our days, it quickly becomes clear that our minds and bodies are decoupled most of the time.  

From the exterior, we might appear to be doing — reading, walking, or drinking a cup of coffee. But in reality, we’re just Walking Dead walkers roaming the world. Body on autopilot, mind nowhere to be found. It’s so common that we don’t even notice it. 

Attention is our most precious resource, and it’s in short supply. Aligning the mind with the present is the key to both productivity and equanimity. 

MULTITASKING 

If multitasking is conducting multiple activities simultaneously, and thinking is an activity, then having body and mind operating on separate fronts would be multitasking. Correct?

Is this multitasking more productive?
Does this layer of superfluous mental activity serve any purpose? 

Gauge your attention as you write your next email. What percentage of your attention is focused on the task at hand? How much attention is in the future, anticipating the recipient’s reaction? And where’s the rest of it? 

How does that divided attention improve productivity and/or facilitate the email writing? 

You’re now taking a shower. Option A: While showering, your mind is worrying about something that happened yesterday. Option B: Both mind and body are present, savouring the sensations of the hot water on your skin. 

Which is more enjoyable? 

Our minds struggle with monotasking. 

And yet multitasking — decoupling the mind from the body — is neither productive, nor enjoyable. 

MENTAL BULIMIA

– What’s your day like?

– Well, today I need to…(checklist). 

(12 hours later, same question, same answer) 

–How was your day? What do you have planned for the evening?

– Well, tonight I need to … (checklist). 

We’re all running mental checklists, day in, day out, 24/7. 

Checklists are mirages. They’re never ending. It’s like chasing a rainbow. 

Checklists provide the mind with an excuse to be elsewhere.

Checklists also entertain the delusion that we’re being productive and getting stuff done. 

The checklist mindset is mental bulimia.

The mind needs plans, objectives, and excuses to satiate its voracious appetite. 

Instead of individual moments, you’re caught in a perpetual continuum of ongoing effort and stress.

But the mind is never replete. 

To get away from it, people take a sabbatical. Some go on holiday. Others join a monastery. Or quit their job. Or burn out.  

But neither the holiday nor the monastery will improve your situation since you would be taking the checklist mindset along with you. After a few days of enchantment, the monastery duties would become chores. And there you would be, checklisting and milking the multitasking melodrama you attempted to escape from. 

A change of physical setting isn’t sustainable long term. 

The shift needs to be internal. 

2 PRINCIPLES OF BREATHING

In order to escape this mental hell, observe the breath. 

Breathing provides us with 2 reminders: 

First, the breath is sequential. You can’t layer breaths, nor can you take more than one breath at a time. 

Also, breathing can be done, or it can just happen. Ask yourself: Do you breathe? If you forget to breathe, what would happen? Breathing would still occur, regardless of you doing it or not. 

How can we apply those 2 principles to our daily lives? 

SEQUENCING INSTEAD OF LAYERING

Take a deep breath. Keep the mind with the breath.

This is conscious breathing. 

Now pick up a piece of paper — or open your note taking app. 

Take another breath.

Is the mind still here? 

Draft a list of 3 things you need to do. 

Take another breath.

Where is your attention? 

Look at the list.

Is there any task that you feel like doing?

If so, good. Start with that.

If not, start with the easiest one. 

THE THICKNESS OF EACH MOMENT

As you boot your computer, monitor everything happening in this moment. Feel your fingers on the keyboard. How are you sitting? How is your back positioned in the chair? Feel the soles of your feet on the ground. How is the temperature in the room? Can you feel the energy running through your body? Can you feel your bloodstream flowing? Can you feel your heartbeat?

Multitasking now takes on another meaning. You’re tasting the thickness of this present moment.

Monitor your attention. Thoughts are being thought. Who is thinking them? Can you step back and watch the thoughts float by like clouds in the sky? 

You are now witnessing it all unfold. How does this feel? 

FROM ROWING TO SAILING

By taking each action consciously, and granting your utmost attention to the present moment, you enter the flow, the zone. 

Instead of swimming upstream through effort, you’re now carried by the current.

Alan Watts calls this ‘sailing instead of rowing‘. 

The mind lines up with the doing, and a sense of inner peace returns into our daily activities. 

This pleasure is not derived from the activity, but instead from the state of mind we bring to the activity. Writing an email, picking up the tea cup, walking across the room. Each moment is infused with the same energy. 

By the end of the day, you might even realize that your day was more productive. 

The riverbed isn’t the stream. The flow just happens. No doer. No effort. 

Just remember to take it one breath at a time. 

Now. 

Now. 

Now.