Single-Minded Devotion is a 'habit' change I am currently practicing daily and this article from my favorite blogger (I share a fair amount of his work) explains exactly why.
I’m going to share
a secret to productivity, happiness and mindfulness that you can practice right
now, and every day:
Devote yourself single-mindedly to
anything you do.
And by that, I mean anything. For example, you can single-mindedly focus
on:
·
Writing
·
Washing a dish
·
Talking to someone
·
Reading an online article
·
Listening to a podcast
·
Eating a grape
·
Running
Most of us try to
combine doing two or more things at once, by listening to a podcast while
running. I’ve done this, and you can’t really enjoy either activity fully.
You’re not really present with either. That’s not to say you should never
combine activities, but to the extent that you decide to focus on one at a
time, you’ll be more present with it, and more fully appreciate it.
Most of us are also
very good at switching focus. I do this too, and what it means is that we’re
not really devoting ourselves to anything. We’re saying that there is nothing
worthy of our full attention. Nothing is sacred if we are constantly switching.
What if we made everything we do sacred?
What if we decide
that if we’re going to spend precious moments of our life on something, we’re
going to treat it with reverence, wonder and respect?
What if every time we ate something,
we gave it our undivided attention? Every time we talk to someone, we treat
their words as if they were their last words? (An idea I’m stealing from the
amazing Jeffrey Davis of Tracking Wonder.)
What if, every time
we open a website, we have only that website open … and treat it as if it were
a sacred activity?
What if, every time
we do anything, we give it not only our full attention, but our full
appreciation? We found gratitude and wonder and love in everything we did?
If we acted like
this, every day, then our lives would be filled with mindfulness, gratitude,
happiness.
When you are about
to start doing something, pause to notice what you’re doing. Set an intention
to be fully devoted, single-mindedly devoted, to this one thing. Then give it
your everything, as if it were your last act.
- Leo Babauta
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