Meditating to improve productivity: it's worth the time

Something that helps me get a lot done in a day is meditating three times.

It’s a very effective tool that helps me regain focus once I notice I’m starting to feel frayed, overwhelmed or unclear on what I’m doing. I call this time of day: ‘when my brain starts to overcook’.

I do a simple 6 minute meditation. I find this is a good amount of time to drop into a state of relaxation, clear my mind and refresh myself ready to do more work. If I’m feeling ‘busy’ then 6 minutes is the number that seems manageable and doesn’t have me saying ‘oh, I don’t have time to meditate’. When I first started, I could only spare myself two minutes.

I simply sit in a comfortable position, either on a chair or cross-legged on my couch, I set my phone timer for 6 minutes and then close my eyes and pay attention to my breath. My phone alarm is set to a pleasant tranquil alarm, which guides me out of the meditation in a relaxed way rather than an alarming way. Put your phone on silent and flight mode if you fear coming out of your meditation to a bunch of notifications.

There are many things you can ‘do’ for these 6 minutes to help you receive the benefits of meditation, here are some of my favourites:

Classic meditation: focus on your breath, or one part of your breath and do your best to bring your attention back to your breath everytime you find yourself going back to thinking mode.
Grounding visualisation: focus your attention on your feet on the ground and imagine you are growing roots that extend way down into the centre of the earth. I find this is a good way to ground myself, particularly on days where I may have overdone the caffeine.
Mantra: repeat a calming phrase as you breathe in and out (out loud or internally, as you prefer). For example. Breathing in: ‘calm’ Breathing out: ‘surrender.’
Progressive muscle relaxation: to do this completely often takes more than 6 minutes but in the quick version you may like to focus on scanning through your body, noticing any tension, and focus on relaxing those areas while breathing deeply. My trouble areas are: clenching my jaw, my eyeballs and forehead, shoulders and hips. It’s highly beneficial to do this throughout the day as it reduces work-related injuries.

I find 3 times per day to be the magic number for me. I tend to meditate about 2 hours after I wake up before I get into serious work mode, then in the afternoon either directly after lunch or when I notice my brain is ‘overcooked’ and then at the end of the day as I transition into my evening activities. Of course, it’s very nice to allow yourself longer meditation times but I find the short ones make for excellent maintenance and are easy to stick with on a consistent basis.

Additionally, I find it’s good to do this quick 6 minute refresh when switching between projects. For example, if I’ve worked on my business for 2 hours and then wish to switch to my fiction writing it’s really helpful to set my timer for 6 minutes, do some relaxing breathing and start to visualise myself getting into ‘writer mode’. It helps my mental process greatly.

If you want to get more done in your day I highly recommend you give this a go. It refreshes your mind and your physical body so you have more energy for your day and it’s great to do in between tasks that require different kinds of mental energy.

What about you? Do you have any meditation tips that would be helpful for other artists reading this blog? Please share them below so we can all benefit.