Mindfulness: How It Can Help Your Meetings

Mindfulness: How It Can Help Your Meetings

Mindfulness – “What’s that?” you might ask. I know it sounds “new age-y”, but there is business value in this concept.  Being mindful is a state of mind and practice that helps us purposely pay attention to the present moment. It’s more active than awareness. You use energy and time to focus.

I’m always searching for ideas on how to improve my meetings – the ones  I lead or attend. Mary-Frances Makichen at Medium.com in “Mindfulness: It’s Not Just for Meditation, Here’s How to Add It to Your Meetings Too” details practical steps in giving attention to meetings from preparation to evaluation.

Mindfulness: It’s Not Just for Meditation, Here’s How to Add It to Your Meetings Too

mindfulness-and-meetingsUnfortunately, we’ve all sat through horribly convoluted, superfluous meetings wondering why the organizer decided to bring this plague down upon us. No one wants to get a reputation for organizing needless or unproductive meetings and with a little planning it’s completely avoidable. Since meetings use two precious commodities — our time and attention — it can be very useful to mindfully outline what you hope to achieve when gathering a group together. Via medium.com

Conscious listening (using Mary-Frances’ terms) is a behavior that is often missing in our communications with each other. She recommends we give up the need to defend ourselves and to show ourselves better than as others. By listening consciously, we pick up the implied emotions and opinions behind an individual’s remarks or silence.  If we listen more than we speak, we won’t drain others around us with the endless sound of our voice.

Do you think mindfulness can help you plan and run more efficient meetings?

 

[social_quote duplicate=”no” align=”default”]Meetings use two precious commodities — our time and attention. ~Mary-Frances Makichen[/social_quote]

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Protected by WP Anti Spam

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.