April Mindfulness Challenge: Mindfulness While Completing Tasks

April’s Mindfulness Challenge was to stay mindful while completing tasks. A lot of times when people think of mindfulness they think of meditation. In reality, it’s a lot more than that. Many people say that mindfulness is essentially just the intentional focusing of your attention. That being said, I felt like creating a challenge about being mindful while completing tasks would make perfect sense and be extremely eye-opening. Lemme tell ya, IT WAS.

Recently I’ve been feeling all over the place, torn in a million different directions. I work a full-time job in Seattle that I have to commute an hour each way for, meaning I’m typically gone about 10 hours out of the day. Doesn’t really leave a whole lot of time for other things that matter to me like working on my blog, exercising, making healthy meals, hanging out with friends and family, reading, self-care… you get it. AND on top of all of that trying to handle everything else that isn’t quite as fun – chores, errands, etc. When I asked you guys about this on Instagram, a lot of you said you felt the same way. It’s so incredibly common to feel overwhelmed with all of the things we have to balance in life.

The purpose of April’s Mindfulness Challenge was to help us learn how to truly focus on just one thing at a time. Instead of drowning in everything we have to do and letting it become so daunting that we freeze and fail to get any of it done at all, I wanted to challenge us to choose mindfulness. Intentional focusing of our attention. These were the steps I laid out for the challenge:

• Assess what you need (or want) to accomplish and prioritize which items are the most important.
• Pick one task and focus on it for a set amount of time with 0 distractions (Doing this for 25 minutes is known as ‘The Pomodoro Technique’ and is one of my favorite ways to work).
• If you get distracted, don’t stress or beat yourself up! Just acknowledge what it was that pulled you away and return to your task. If it’s something you can get rid of, do so! A good example of this is your phone. If you notice you keep checking it while working on something, put it in another room and set a timer!

Now for the good part.

Lessons learned from choosing mindfulness while completing tasks:

The most obvious and maybe the most important: You’ll be much more productive.

Remaining mindful and present while working on a task pretty much ensures that you’ll be able to get more done. Multi-tasking isn’t effective, we all know that. Choosing ONE task and sticking with it ‘til completion is a recipe for success. Before this challenge I would get home from work a lot of nights and have a zillion things I wanted to get done. I’d do this thing where I’d work on one for like 5 minutes, not even finish it, and just hop to the next. It was totally multi-tasking and was NOT fulfilling or productive at all. I noticed that working on one task until I was done or needed a break allowed me to accomplish so much more!

Your thoughts will become clearer, making more room for creativity.

If we work on something without staying mindful while doing so, odds are it won’t be our best work. Think about it. Whenever you’ve just had a fight with a loved one, you typically won’t do as well at work or school that day because your thoughts are too all over the place. On the other hand, we all know what it feels like to be in the zone (what some people like to call ‘flow’) – cranking work out like it’s nothing. This is a result of mindful, hyper-focused thinking. When we train our attention on just one task it leaves more room for inspiration and creative magic to occur. 

You’ll feel less overwhelmed and/or stressed.

I have to say this is probably my favorite benefit and one of the things I noticed the most drastic change with throughout April. Once I started taking everything I had to do just one thing at a time, I noticed myself just being a happier person overall. I stopped feeling stretched so thin and my mind stopped racing as much as it used to.

A big explanation for this decrease in stress is that when you set a stopping point for yourself, (like 25 minutes with the Pomodoro Technique), everything seems so much more manageable. That 15-page paper you have to write for class or the entire house you have to clean suddenly doesn’t feel quite as large. Taking tasks in small chunks relieves large amounts of stress.

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To wrap this up I have to bring up one of the most cliché phrases of all-time. But, as I like to say, cliché things are cliché for a reason. Take life one thing at a time. Literally. Don’t exhaust yourself by trying to be superwoman and doing them all at once. It’s ok to have a lot on your plate… that can actually be a really good thing. The key is to incorporate mindfulness when you’re trying to work on these tasks. You’ll be more efficient, focused, productive, and calm.

I would LOVE to hear the experiences any of you guys had with this challenge. Please feel free to leave a comment below or contact me privately via email if you’d rather! Check out this month’s mindfulness challenge:

May Mindfulness Challenge

May’s challenge is to Practice Mindfulness in the Mundane Moments. For the rest of the month when you’re doing those little mundane things we all have to do (brush our teeth, shower, drive, clean, etc.) try to keep your mind from wandering! Use it as a chance to slow down and breathe. If applicable (like when you’re driving), observe your surroundings! Stay away from auto-pilot. Who knows… maybe you’ll pass by a restaurant that could end up being your all-time fav! We never know what we neglect to see when we’re lost in thought just cruising through life.

Per usual, I wanna say thanks for reading and hope to see you back soon. 🙂

XO Sorelle