My best multitasking technique

Are you pressed for time? Always running from one thing to the next, exhausted and out of breath? No time for rest or relaxation or calming your mind?

What if I told you that you could relax while also being productive? Improve your health while also working on your goals? What?!?!?

It’s true. You can!

If you want to take multi-tasking to a whole new level, try using goal-oriented visualizations to meditate.

Before I explain how this works, let me share a little about visualizations and meditation so you can better understand just how powerful and efficient this multitasking technique is.

Visualization

Visualization is when you use your imagination to create vivid pictures and then activate all of your senses to fully experience the movie in your mind. It is very powerful and one of the secret weapons I’ve been using since I was a child.

Visualization works in a few different ways.

First, it trains your brain. Studies show that your brain doesn’t know the difference between visualizing an activity and actually doing an activity. It’s why visualization exercises are a key part of most Olympic training programs and most professional athletes use them. They create muscle memory that can help you perform better without additional physical exertion.

Second, it activates the brain’s reticular activating system (RAS) which brings your goals into focus. Okay, we’re getting deep… I’m clearly not a neuroscientist, but here’s my layman’s understanding of how RAS works. It filters out all of the ridiculous amounts of information coming your way at any given moment so that you can function without being completely overwhelmed by data. If you visualize reaching a certain goal often enough, your RAS will start making sure that any information related to that goal comes your way and isn’t filtered out. This in turn makes you more focused, motivated, and aware of opportunities and solutions related to your goal.

If that sounds like hocus pocus, wait until what I have to tell you next!

Third, and there is no science behind this at all (although some quantum physicists might disagree), it magnetizes and attracts energy so that your reality begins to reflect your thoughts. Some call this manifestation or law of attraction. It may seem a little out there (or maybe way out there) but it’s worked magic for me my entire life. Not to mention, respectable scientists such as Edison and Einstein admitted to using and benefiting from this unexplainable theory.

Meditation

Meditation is stated most simply as simultaneously relaxing and focusing your mind. There are many different ways to meditate including focusing on your breath, a mantra (a word or phrase), a body sensation, any object or activity, or nothing at all. There’s no right or wrong way to meditate.

A common meditation technique, especially used by beginners, is guided visualizations. These are a bit different than the visualizations described above because they’re completely unrelated to goals and the picture is being created based on prompts. For example, the meditation teacher might suggest you picture yourself at the beach, feel your toes in the sand, smell the sea salt in the air and hear the waves crashing on the shore. It’s generally a very calming and serene picture and, again, completely unrelated to your goals.

Meditation used to be considered woo-woo, hippy dippy stuff but since Harvard and Johns Hopkins have been researching it for the last two decades, there’s now science that supports its benefits. Studies show that a regular meditation practice can improve memory and slow the brain’s aging process, increase attention and concentration, reduce depression, anxiety, fear and stress, and lower blood pressure.

I’ve not had my brain scanned so I don’t know if I’ve benefited from the neuroscientific research above, but I can tell you that meditation has helped me not be so reactive and remain calm in situations that would have previously upset me. At any given moment, I can chill out, let go of the crazy and get back to sane (which is sometimes difficult to do in this fast-paced modern society). It’s like a magic reset button.

So how do you combine the two with minimal effort and maximum benefit?

Begin by getting in a meditative state.

Close the door, silence your phone and get away from any distractions. Sit with your back straight (on the floor or in a chair) and relax your shoulders and jaw. Gently close your eyes and begin to breathe more deeply.

Then bring to mind a goal that you have. Whether it’s reaching a new milestone in your career, finding a better job, losing weight or running a marathon, just bring your goal to mind and then imagine what success looks like.

If you’re a professional golfer and your goal is to win the Masters, you’d visualize winning. You’d hear the applause and congratulatory words, you’d see your friends and family, you’d see and feel the weight of the green jacket. You’d then visualize what it takes to win. Again, if you’re a golfer, you’d imagine each hole, the layout, the swing, the trajectory and the ball landing at the perfect spot. You’d play the perfect game in your mind.

If your mind wanders to your to-do list or what’s for dinner, gently bring it back to your vision of success and what it takes to get there.

If you do this for only 5-10 minutes each day (it’s an essential part of my daily routine!), you’ll get the benefits of calming your mind and training your brain to reach your goals.

Another added benefit is that meditative visualizations bring about immediate feelings of gratitude and joy. It feels great to see yourself doing something with ease and grace and then reaping the rewards of a job well done! And the beauty is you’re just sitting in your office or home thinking about it. You don’t actually have to succeed to get the emotional benefit of what it would feel like to do so.

So there you go – a multitasking miracle 🙂

Give it a try and leave a comment letting me know your best multitasking techniques.

Heather