Overworked and Overwhelmed – the mindfulness alternative

Scott Eblin gives a handbook of more mindful work for the 24x7 professional arguing that even small increases in mindfulness can lead to big changes in productivity and quality of life. In this summary, we will learn :

The real costs of living in a chronic state of fight or flight.

What mindfulness means and how to begin practicing it.

How to find the right physical, mental and spiritual routines so you can be at your best.

To discover your true purpose and to define success for you

Scott argues that when your calendar is packed and you feel you are battling with work, family and community commitments, you might feel like its becoming crazier lately. There are two factors that is different today than it was in yester years – one companies want to do more and more with less and less and two the advent of smartphones has made it all too easy to remain attached to work.

To add to this, any kind of leadership – be it technical  or supervisory requires the presence at a personal, team and organization levels and we can’t just appear exhausted when we are on the spot.

So what’s the alternative ? Mindfulness based stress reduction programs founder Jon Kabat-Zinn says “Mindfulness is the awareness that arises by paying attention on purpose in the presence moment and non-judgementally.” In other words we have a choice to engage in the present without wasting efforts on thinking if its good or bad. Through awareness and intention, mindfulness sets you up for high performance.

The barriers to mindfulness include :

Mental chatter : we don’t have define this one as most of us are familiar with it. Knowing it means we can overcome it

Distractions: You will likely be distracted every 11 minutes and it will take you about 25 minutes to get back.

Lack of awareness in your story: There’s always the immediate picture and the big picture. We might be missing one or both

The trouble is we don’t anticipate that stroke or collapse when we realize we have stretched too far. That moment of truth is when we realize we need to take action. Why not earlier ?

To go into some details about what the body is enduring, the brain is just as much an organ as any other and has just as much expectation to get tired as any other. Although we are not fighting or taking flight from sabre tooth tigers, we feel the threats similarly even today. In this state, the toll on the body can be severe.

Scott argues that you need to ask yourself two questions to guage your health. What do you do when you are at your best ? And what are the routines that will enable you to be in that zone ?

To answer the first question, do the following:

1)      Find a quite place where you wont be distracted for say half-hour.

2)      Remember when you were in this zone. – label them as home, work or community arena

3)      Remember how it felt.- for example if you were calm, creative, focused or collaborative.

4)      Look for common denominators-  These are the patterns that repeat in different experiences.

5)      And congratulate yourself on finding out from the above on what makes you best

Of course to do these, you have to battle the pressure of time. So let’s look at some time management tips:

Recognize and overcome the tyranny of the present.

Ask if this is really even necessary.

Push your calendar’s reset button – can you delegate or outsource ?

Schedule the most important rocks first.

Give yourself time for some conscious thoughts.

Set boundaries and guardrails  - you may have to communicate this to those around you.

Use Yes and no strategically.

Tame the distraction dragon.

And finally consider your impact.

These ten principles will let you manage your time much more efficiently than before.

To go back and answer the second question, here are seven principles for choosing and following the routines that work for you.

Strive for rhythm not balance

Start where you are

Feed your sweet spot

Choose what is easy to do and likely to make a difference.

Ditch the dogma

Take baby steps

And remember that less is more.

Never neglect your health in practicing the routines found from above. For example, movement is all the more desirable because it is healthy, productive and confidence building. Similarly sleep rejuvenates mind and body. And so does eating right.

And now for the mental routines, rely on your killer app – breathing. You don’t have to spend a lot of time thinking about it. Just notice your breathing and keep coming back to it.

Also, here are some routines to navigate the time frames of the mind.

Reduce regret and remorse about the past – breathe, learn some lessons and take those actions now

Play with the present- if your mind wanders off, just notice it and come back to it. For example, be mindful of the temperature of the water and the froth from the soap if you are cleaning pots and pans.

And visualize away your worries about the future. Since worry has made you notice it already, take steps to move towards more productive thoughts.

In case you already noticed, we think a lot about others. Consequently relationships matter. If relationship suffers, your results, your health and your humanity suffers. You can combat these with paying attention to it since you know they will be affected.  You can take steps like feeling grateful, reading self improvement literature, repetitive prayer or meditation and finally journaling.

Having talked about extrinsic factors, you can remind yourself that not everything is in your control. So don’t expect too much or too narrow. Instead take a look at the success that comes with mindful work. Consider the full range of outcomes from transactional to transformational The transformational ones require far more energy, time and attention. Its what makes your startup succeed or as it did for Jim Campbell to bring back jobs to America. These are the outcomes that are large scale and need your mindfulness to factor in opportunities for transformation.

Lastly, since we are not gifted with everything but we all have gifts, align your mindfulness with your strengths.

#codingexercise
Find the minimal number of coins to make a change for an amount t$ given that the denominations are  v1, v2, ... vn and there is unlimited number of coins for each denomination.
For example, given a value t  = 15$ and a set of coins with denominations 1,3,9,10 the answer is three because coins with values 3 + 3 + 6 = 15.

Notice that from the coin sorting problem discussed earlier, we use the optimal substructure as the sub-problem without the inclusion of the last coin
In order to pay the amount t, the last coin must be <= t-1 in order to be included in the amount t when the coins are sorted.
Hence we use the recurrence, f(t) = min(f(t-vi)) + 1, where 0 < i <= n
int GetMinCount(int total, int [] coins)
{
int[] counts = new int[total+1];
counts[0] = 0;
const int max = Int32.MaxValue;
for(int i = 1 i<= total; ++i) {
   int count = max;
   for (int k = 0; k < coins.length;k++) {
          if (i - coins[k] > = 0 && count > counts[i - coins[k]])
              count = counts[i - coins[k]]
   }
   if (count < max )
       counts[i] = count + 1;
   else
       counts = max;
}
 return counts[total];