Chapter 2

Concentration

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Concentration steadies and focuses our attention so that we can let go of unhealthy inner distractions—punishing regrets about the past, manufactured worries about the future, addictive tendencies—and keep from being seduced by outer ones. Distraction wastes our energy; concentration restores it.

We often experience our attention as scattered. We sit down to think something through or work through a dilemma, and before we know it, we’re someplace else. Maybe we’re lost in thoughts of the past, often having to do with something we now regret. I should have said that more skillfully. I should have been less timid and spoken up. I should have been wiser and shut up. We aren’t thinking about things in order to find a means to make amends or act more responsibly; instead, we’re stuck in what is past.

For some of us, distraction can propel us into anxious thoughts of the future. For someone who might be an anxious flyer, facing a flight and all the timing issues that come with it can be stressful—especially without the power of concentration. Imagine the mind of a worried flyer sitting on an airplane at a busy airport. Suddenly he starts thinking, Oh no, I think this plane might leave late. I’m sure it will be late. Now I’m going to miss my connection. That means I’m going to arrive in Portland, Oregon, after midnight. There won’t be any cabs! What’s going to happen to me? I’ll never make it to my hotel, and I won’t make my meeting the next day! I’ll lose my job, and so on.

When I see my own mind beginning that arc of anxiety, I have a saying I use to help restore me to balance. “Something will happen.” Perhaps there will be a bus. Or I’ll spend the night in the airport. Something will happen. I can’t figure it all out right now. Without concentration our minds just spin off into the future, in a way that isn’t like skillful planning, but is more like exhausting rumination. Concentration is the art of gathering all that energy, that stormy, scattered attention, and settling with it. It doesn’t mean we never think about the past or the future; it means we’re not so subject to anxious speculation, to self-sabotaging patterns of thought, to deferring a sense of possibility to some far-off day, instead of seizing it today.

One friend of mine, a very busy executive, was an endless ruminator at work, always in his head and one step out of sync with the department he controlled. This disjunction caused a lot of grief among employees who accused him, sometimes to his face, of being unfeeling, callous, and distant. My friend is none of these things. He’s just a worrywart who has a very hard time staying in the present moment. He has trouble concentrating because, as he says, “My mind is going one hundred miles an hour trying to stop bad things from happening.” Although it is often the welfare of his department, and, by extension, those who work there, that keep him distracted, the real-life human beings around him accuse him of being “a suit” who doesn’t care about them. One day, an intern with nothing to lose told him that he was rude and obnoxious. “She said, ‘Earth to whoever you are, I’m talking to you,’” he remembers, “and it snapped me out of my trance. I was a million miles away. She busted me, and I’m grateful she did.”

Most of us have our own versions of being absent or distracted, that we use as occasional (or habitual) shields at work. These fuzzy mind states create barriers we might not be aware of and weaken connections and job performance in general. Concentration bolsters mindfulness, on the other hand, and in turn is strengthened by mindfulness, because we can let go of distractions more and more easily as we grow more mindful. Turbulent thoughts, futile regrets, anxious wanderings may arise, but they arise accompanied by less and less “glue.” Then they don’t take hold of our attention and spin us away from the home base of the present moment.

Stealth Meditation

If you are on a conference call, refrain from checking your email or doing another task at the same time.

Attention

When it comes to work, cultivating the ability to steady our attention and concentrate on the task at hand can lead to greater satisfaction. “Mindfulness has to do with paying attention to what’s happening in the moment without judgment,” says Mirabai Bush, “Sometimes people think being mindful means being slow. It’s not about being slow, it’s about being slow enough that you can pay attention to things. It requires a certain intelligence to be able to focus on many things at the same time.” Besides making us more productive, strength of attention is directly related to subjective well-being, a term used by positive psychologists to describe personal levels of happiness. Mind wandering on the job has been shown to dramatically decrease happiness in the workplace, in fact, and concentration increases the good feelings that come with immersion and flow. Feeling good about what we do for a living depends more on our moment-to-moment experiences than it does on prestige, status, or pay. Being present is its own reward and offers benefits of both empowerment and integration. Think about all of the energy we waste as we are caught in the past, in the future, in judgment and speculation. Then imagine capturing all of that energy, so that it is returned to us, a force we can gain access to, utilize, and shape. That’s a source of tremendous power. And we don’t need to beg, borrow, or steal that energy, chemically induce it or inflate it—it is ours, allied with our attention and ready to be redeemed.

Concentration also integrates the different parts of our experience into a cohesive whole. The larger manifestation of distractedness is often a feeling of fragmentation. This is the way we can have so much compartmentalization and role identification in our lives—not because it is always useful, but because we are accustomed to inner division and evasion, reacting in the moment without much of a sense of a core or center to our lives. It is due to this pattern that people often say, “I feel like I’m one person at work and a completely different person at home.” So much of the day we feel disconnected from parts of ourselves, let alone from others. As we develop more concentration, the different threads of our experience are seamlessly woven together, and we discover an essential sense of who we are and what we care about. Then we can lose the way we often have of setting ourselves apart from the moment and come fully alive as we engage in our tasks, no part left out, as my absentminded friend learned when his intern called him on his rudeness.

Meditation helps us stay on task longer and be less distracted by our environment, which in turn lowers our stress level. While one-pointed attention may appear to slow us down, the practice of limiting ourselves to one activity at a time frees our mind of distraction and actually makes us more productive.

Rita Arens, deputy editor of a national women’s website and business called BlogHer, learned this after years of feeling crazed at work. “I get several hundred emails a day at two different accounts,” Rita says. “I need to keep up with Twitter and Facebook as well as find time to work on my personal writing projects—my blog, my novel—and be the wife and mother I want to be. ‘Overwhelmed’ is my mood most days. The multitude of distractions used to affect my ability to concentrate, which left me feeling strung out and anxious.” Rita’s meditation practice has helped to strengthen her ability to focus when barraged simultaneously with multiple demands. She has learned that while it’s unrealistic to try to stop the number and variety of incoming demands, in our technologically advanced world it is possible to modulate how much information we’re taking in, and how many tasks we are doing at once. When we slow down and concentrate on doing just what is before us to be done now, we become the masters of our own environment rather than its frantic slaves. Through concentration, we’re able to narrow the scope of our attention and choose what we need to focus on. “It’s not always possible to remove myself from situations, but it is always possible to stay with my breath for even just a minute.” The practice of one-pointed attention has helped to decrease Rita’s stress and transformed her working life by strengthening her concentration.

A whole new form of attention deficit disorder has emerged from the overwhelming atmosphere of the modern workplace. Attention deficit trait (ADT) is workplace-induced attention deficit caused by the constant, relentless input of information, these days usually enabled by our high-tech devices, smartphones, and computers. Unlike attention deficit disorder (ADD), people aren’t born with ADT. According to Edward Hallowell, the psychiatrist who identified ADT, its symptoms are widespread and appear to describe most people who have jobs—at least some of the time. He identifies the symptoms of ADT this way: “When people find that they’re not working to their full potential; when they know that they could be producing more but in fact they’re producing less; when they know they’re smarter than their output shows; when they start answering questions in ways that are more superficial, more hurried than they usually would; when their reservoir of new ideas starts to run dry; when they find themselves working ever longer hours and sleeping less, exercising less, spending free time with friends less, and in general putting in more hours but getting less production overall.”

Never in history has the human brain been asked to track so many data points. As working people today struggle to keep up with the onslaught of information streaming toward them in the digital age, poor job performance caused by multitasking has become a major problem for employers as well as for employees. The reason for this is that, contrary to popular belief: Human beings seem to be cognitively unable to multitask. Multitasking is a modern myth that contributes to low self-esteem at work, fraying our nerves, and harming our job skills as we struggle, and fail, to master a skill for which the human brain is unprepared.

Stealth Meditation

Pay attention to your hands. See if you can make the switch from the more conceptual thought of “these are my fingers,” to the world of direct sensations—pulsing, throbbing, pressure. You don’t have to name these sensations, just feel them.

Multitasking

We would like to believe that attention is infinite, but it isn’t. That is why multitasking is a misnomer. The brain can focus only on one thing at a time. We take in information sequentially. When we attempt to focus on multiple tasks simultaneously, what actually happens is that we switch back and forth between tasks, paying less attention to both. This does not mean that we can’t walk and chew gum at the same time, of course. What we cannot do is concentrate in the same moment on two distinct, input-rich activities that require our attention. While we may be able to talk on the phone and stir coffee simultaneously, we can’t carry on a conversation and text at the same time without losing information and time. Studies show that when people are interrupted and have to switch their attention back and forth, they take—on average—50 percent longer to accomplish the task and make up to 50 percent more errors. That’s because each time you switch tasks, your brain has to run through a complex process to disengage the neurons involved in one task and activate the neurons needed for the other. The more you switch back and forth, the more time you waste and the lower your quality of work.

Strung out by information overload, however, many of us are becoming habituated and addicted to distraction. “Successful” multitasking has been shown to activate the reward circuit in the brain by increasing dopamine levels—the brain chemical responsible for feelings of happiness. The danger of this is that the dopamine rush feels so good that we don’t notice we’re making more mistakes. This is comparable to the rush you might feel while playing the slot machines in a casino. Stimulated and entertained by the flashing lights, the ringing bells, and the distracting, carnival-like atmosphere, gamblers go into a pleasure trance, addicted to the illusion of winning money when, in fact, they’re going broke. It’s important to be aware of how multitasking can stimulate us into mindlessness, giving the illusion of productivity while stealing our focus and harming performance. “When you are walking, walk. When you are sitting, sit,” is ancient wisdom. Hopping rapidly from one thing to the next, answering the phone while we’re shuffling papers while we’re sipping a latte, we fritter away our attention and forget more easily. In addition to dopamine, multitasking prompts the release of adrenaline and other stress hormones, which contribute to short-term memory loss as well as long-term health problems. This also means that the information we take in while multitasking is harder to retrieve later than information we take in while concentrating. That is why learning to be a unitasker in a multitasking world is so vital.

Rather than divide our attention, it is far more effective to take frequent breaks between intervals of sustained, one-pointed attention. A Web designer named Brian figured this out for himself with no knowledge of neuroscience. “I work for a community news site and have to be online from nine to five,” Brian says. “It can really fry the brain and get tedious. I’ve found that if I take ten minutes or so for every hour of work to do something for myself, like read somebody’s blog or take a walk, it helps me concentrate when I turn back to my duties.” Although this may sound difficult, Brian’s increased focus enables him to return to the task at hand with surprising ease. “Instead of hopping from thing to thing—which is so tempting with the Internet—I focus on what’s in front of me. Then I let myself dillydally to give my brain a rest. When it comes to work, less is definitely more in terms of feeling satisfied. And efficient.” While this may sound counterintuitive, relaxing our focus for regular intervals and pacing our sustained concentration sharpens attention and renders the mind more flexible.

Debunking the myth of multitasking, we become much better at what we do and increase the chance of being able to remember the details of work we have done in the past.

Stealth Meditation

Every time you feel bored, pay more acute attention to the moment. Are you listening carefully or are you multitasking? Try to be fully present with just one thing.

Boredom

Boredom is a common nemesis at work. Boredom does not necessarily arise from having too little to do, however. Feelings of boredom arise from disengagement regardless of the cause. From frontline service workers to corporate executives, workplace boredom is rampant for two primary reasons. First, a difficulty in finding meaning in the work we do; second, the absence of variety in our daily tasks. Uninterrupted routine and perceived monotony are great challengers of concentration. While today’s employees may be busier than ever, many are not tremendously inspired. In a tough economy where it’s riskier to change jobs, employees may stay in the same place so long that they feel stuck and uncreative.

Of course, everyone (even people who love their work) is bound to be bored at work sometimes. That’s why some employers in high-risk occupations are installing built-in countermeasures to fight boredom on the job. The Transportation Safety Administration, for example, rotates its officers to different tasks every half hour in order to keep them from getting bored, and help keep them sharply focused. “We want eagle eyes at each of those posts,” a TSA officer explains. “We like to say there’s never a dull day at TSA.”

Interesting as such ideas can be, each of us, anytime we want to, can dispel boredom through attention. The wonderful thing about mindfulness, as many meditators know, is its power to make the most ordinary things interesting. The more closely we attend to experience, the more fascinating its details become. Fritz Perls, one of those who brought Gestalt therapy to the United States, said, “If you are bored, you are not paying attention.” Understanding this, boredom becomes a valuable feedback tool for us, telling us not that the situation or person we face is too confining or wearying, or somehow lacking but rather that our attention at that time is halfhearted.

When we do pay full and wholehearted attention, we can’t help but notice that no two moments are ever alike, however monotonous they may appear to a distracted mind. The same job at the same desk reveals itself to be wholly different, one day to the next, when we’re fully engaged in experience moment by moment. The next time you’re struggling with a project but unable to focus, rather than spinning your mental wheels, I suggest that you give yourself a time out. Take a ten-minute walk, preferably outdoors, to relax your weary mind. This is a good alternative to Brian’s habit of Web-surfing. Going a step further and turning it into a walking meditation would be ideal for relaxing your resistance to the task at hand. I will talk more about this in the chapter on resilience. Using skillful means to befriend our overworked minds, instead of persecuting them to distraction, returns us to equanimity and the ability to focus.

Procrastination

The ancient Greeks had a word that lies at the heart of procrastination: akrasia, which means doing something against our own better judgment. When we procrastinate, we act against our own self-interests, satisfying the desire for immediate gratification by sacrificing our own longer-term goals and well-being. The essence of procrastination is to willingly defer something even though you expect the delay to make you worse off. The pile of important papers you never quite get to. The new job you put off looking for even though going to your current place of employment is the bane of your existence. Whenever we knowingly delay doing what’s necessary in favor of the easier, less important task, we feed the demon of procrastination.

Haven’t you noticed how much harder it can be to make positive changes—and break bad habits—than it is to slack off and stay stuck? We can endlessly anticipate difficulty and failure; uncertainty of outcomes alone is enough to keep us from taking action. Many people suffer from perfectionism and fall into the “If I never finish, I can never be judged” syndrome. Others use procrastination as a way of avoiding disappointment and performance anxiety. They may tell themselves in the moment that they are opting for the more pleasurable thing by avoiding what they don’t want to do, but procrastination lowers subjective well-being, rather than the other way around.

A psychologist named Joseph Ferrari has isolated five justifications that we use to explain procrastination and justify the behavior. First, people who procrastinate overestimate the time they have left to finish tasks. This is part of what is called “the planning fallacy.” Next, they tend to underestimate the time that it actually takes to complete said tasks. Third, they overestimate how motivated they’re likely to feel the next day. For me, though, the fourth and fifth reasons are the most interesting. The fourth one is that procrastinators tell themselves that succeeding at a task requires that they feel like doing it; and, fifth, is entertaining the false idea that working when not in the mood is somehow suboptimal—that it’s best to wait till the lightning of inspiration strikes before motivating ourselves to stop procrastinating.

Doreen, a visual artist, lives in a perpetual state of severe postponement. Her apartment is an obstacle course of unfinished work, half-folded clothes strewn around the house, the kitchen sink half-filled with dishes—piles of evidence all around, testifying to Doreen’s inability to force herself to do things she doesn’t enjoy even though they need to be done. Since Doreen works from a home studio and is self-employed, she lacks the benefit of a structured job, which only exacerbates her problem. Chronic procrastination leaves her feeling depressed, angry with herself, and only a fraction of how successful she might be if she got her act together.

When asked about her procrastination, Doreen talks about feeling powerless in her own life—“unequal” is the word she uses. She feels she has too many things to do and too little time with which to do them. Not knowing where to start, she dithers, unable to prioritize or take action. “The thoughts in my head are like pea soup,” Doreen says in an exhausted voice. “Everything just runs together.” To counteract her anxiety about putting things off, Doreen spends a minimum of three hours a day on her bed watching TV and avoiding the tasks she hates herself for avoiding. “It seems like a vicious cycle, like there’s a cog missing somewhere inside me.” She means a cog in her motivating engine. “I stall when I should be working. I can’t figure out how to get a grip on the next thing to do. It makes trying to work at home just impossible.”

I offered Doreen a challenge. For thirty days, she agreed to approach one task a day—and one task only—from Monday till Friday. If a task took her longer than a day to complete, she was instructed to maintain this single focus until the task was completed (regardless of how many days this took). When she caught herself obsessing about her litany of uncompleted tasks, Doreen’s practice was to draw her attention back to the present moment and simply do just the next thing. When tempted to stop halfway and start something else, I instructed her to use reality checks to slow down. “First I’ll finish the copy. When the copy is done, I’ll write the email,” and so on. Though skeptical of any success, Doreen agreed to this thirty-day experiment in focusing.

A month later, Doreen’s actions had changed dramatically. When she came back to me, she seemed amazed by what had transpired. “When my mind settled on just the next thing, I could feel my whole body relax,” she said. “When I finished the first thing—organizing my desk—I felt like I was standing in balance for the first time in as long as I can remember.” One by one, Doreen completed tasks in her home office with increasing speed and facility. “I learned that I could focus this way. One by one. Just that closet. Just that mailing.” After the experiment in “just the next thing” was complete, Doreen claimed to feel better about her prospects as a visual artist, and generally to like herself more.

Technology like email, Facebook, and Twitter are catnip for procrastinators, of course. Attending to a trivial email or being distracted by minutiae can give us an instant hit of gratification or accomplishment, what psychologists call a “quick win,” while keeping us from real work. This leads to feelings of guilt; but guilt is not a solution. The most effective practice for countering procrastination is to identify our problem areas—business letters, networking, whatever it might be—and take small steps in a methodical way toward those tasks we tend to put off. By breaking large projects into small, easier to complete steps, we make them more palatable, focusing our minds on just the next thing, one piece at a time.

Focused, wholehearted, stable attention is a capacity we can cultivate, of course. When we meditate, training our minds in focus, we are practicing a transferable skill. We are also cultivating the art of concentration at work. The focus that is developed through following our breath is the focus that will help us pay full attention to the task—the letter, the email, the conversation—we must complete before surfing the Web or taking a break.

Business Insider program director Arden Pennell is a dedicated meditator and says, “It’s tough, particularly in this office, because the quality of mind that Business Insider is asking you to cultivate is to be constantly watching what’s happening and to be reading all the news feeds, all the time. I get distracted, too, but one of the things that meditation teaches is muscle memory, repetition. You sit on the cushion so many times, your body and nervous system start to learn the practice, noticing when you’re distracted, and dropping it, taking a breath and coming back. And so, if you’ve done that so many times, it becomes easier to access even in the flow of life. So it’s training, like going to the gym. It trains the brain to notice when you’re getting distracted. Meditation creates more decision space around everyday tasks.”

CORE MEDITATION: Walking

Walking meditation is literally a step-by-step way to bring mindfulness into everyday activity. To begin: Let your attention rest fully on the sensation of your feet and legs as you lift them and place them on the ground. Be sure you have enough space to walk at least twenty steps, at which point you’ll turn around and retrace your path. Start by standing comfortably at the beginning of your chosen path with your feet shoulder width apart and your weight evenly distributed. Hold your arms at your sides in whatever way seems comfortable and natural. Become aware of your foot making contact with your shoes, if you’re wearing them, and then with the ground; note what you are feeling. Slowly shift your weight onto your left foot. Notice the way your muscles stretch, strain, and relax and any cracking or popping in your ankles or trembling in the weight-bearing leg. Carefully move back to the center, then shift onto your right foot and leg noticing what your body feels as you make this adjustment. Gently come back to center and stand for a moment. Be aware of the sights and sounds around you without getting lost in them. If you’re outside, you may find yourself distracted. That’s okay. When you notice that your mind is wandering, bring your attention back to the stepping. The very moment you recognize that you’ve been distracted, you’ve begun again to be aware. Finish one step completely before you lift the other foot. Check in with the sensations in your legs, hips, back—any pressure, stiffness, or fluidity. Then come back to the sensations in your feet and legs. Newcomers may feel a bit wobbly, and the more slowly you move and the more aware you become, the more unbalanced you might feel. If that happens, speed up a bit. Do the same if your mind starts wandering or you’re having trouble connecting with your bodily sensations. Experiment with pace until you find the speed that best allows you to keep your attention on the feeling of walking and that lets you remain most mindful. After twenty minutes or so, simply stop and stand. Notice what you feel at the point where your feet meet the floor or ground; take in what you see and hear around you. Gently end the meditation.

If walking is a problem for you, you can do this meditation without literally walking. Instead, sit (or lie down if that’s best) and focus your awareness on another part of the body—moving your hand up and down, say—or on the sensations of wheeling if you’re in a wheelchair. When the instructions call for slow, deliberate, focused movements of the legs and feet, do the same with whatever part of the body you’re using.

Once you have experimented with this in dedicated chunks, try it in transitions such as getting to work, going from room to room at work, all at a normal pace.

CORE MEDITATION: Letting Go of Thoughts

This is a good meditation to practice at the workplace, in between meetings or tasks.

EXERCISE: Awareness of the Body

Here’s an anchoring exercise you can use if your mind is wandering and you feel disconnected from yourself in this moment. It’s simply focusing on your body’s touch points. If you are busy and engaged in several activities at once, and following your breath isn’t helping anchor your attention, become aware of your body’s touch points—the small areas, about the size of a quarter, where your back, thighs, knees, or buttocks are in contact with the chair or cushion, your hand is in contact with your knee, your lips are touching, your ankles are crossed. Focus on these points of contact; picture them, feel them. Doing so may pull you away from your spiraling thoughts and bring you back to this moment.

Q&A

Q How do I learn not to multitask so much?

A When we began the Insight Meditation Society, a witty friend created a mock brochure for us. In the brochure he gave us a made-up motto, “It’s better to do nothing than to waste your time.” I think of that in terms of multitasking. You can experiment with specific tasks, making a point of fully doing one thing only. On a particular conference call, resolve not to read email at the same time. At a meeting, practice deep listening, instead of mentally planning the next day’s meetings. And take short breaks throughout the day, even just a few breaths’ worth, where you do nothing. It feels as though that will make for a crushing overload of things left undone, but in fact we are a lot more productive that way than in time-wasting multitasking.

Q Would you provide a “micro-meditation” that I can quickly do at my desk before a big presentation or meeting?

A I would suggest a one- to three-minute version of settling your attention on the feeling of the breath, the actual physical sensations of your inhalation and exhalation. This will cut through the momentum of feeling rushed and overburdened. Or, if you wish, do one simple activity without multitasking—drink a cup of coffee, get up and stretch, walk down the hall. Your mind will wander, but for that one- to three-minute period you don’t have to try to do more than just that one thing.

Q If meditation tells us to slow down and notice what’s happening, how do we incorporate that message into a workplace where speed is valued, whether it’s a quick response to a question or a fast turnaround on a project?

A If you are working in a very fast-paced environment, see if you can build in some periodic respite to help you center and come back into the present—one minute before a meeting to simply breathe, a brief pause before sending an email, or getting outside for a short break. Then you will feel refreshed and connected to the moment as you move quickly through the next period of work, without being so overcome by momentum that you lose touch with yourself. One benefit of a fast-paced society is that 60 seconds can feel like a luxury when you spend it on yourself, and it is not likely to adversely affect your production during a busy day.

Q How might I deal with irritability toward someone at work when I’m trying to concentrate on the task at hand?

A You might see if you can put the irritable feelings aside, for now, and deal with the present moment’s needs. It’s not that irritability is a bad thing to feel; you’re just making the choice to pay attention to something else for a while. Acknowledge your thoughts and feelings, and in effect put them on a shelf, saying “not right now.” This doesn’t mean that you never seek resolution of the situation you find irritating. It means you will do so at a time and place of your choosing, instead of being driven by the irritability into distraction or hasty action. Meditation practice fosters that choice, by helping us develop our “letting-go muscle,” our ability to not be so caught in everything that comes up in our minds.