6 of My Favorite Tools for Mindfulness + Focus as an Entrepreneur
Let’s be real, staying mindful and focused as an entrepreneur is tough. When I first started working for myself I definitely had some blank canvas syndrome. What the heck do I do now? When you’re working from home, there can be a lot of distractions. Those dishes aren’t going to do themselves, amiright?
Fortunately, there are tools to help us increase concentration and kick that blank canvas syndrome right out the door.
In this post I’m going to share my 6 favorite tools for mindfulness and focus that help me maintain concentration and increase productivity while working for myself. A combination of tech and analog tools is where I find my balance.
Update: I've added a little more about Honeybook as tool 3.1, not giving it a full section just yet. :)
Read on to learn how I stay focused and increase mindfulness with 6 simple tools.
6 Simple Tools for Mindfulness + Focus
1 Email Auto-Responder
Did you know you can use your vacation email auto-responder ALL. THE. TIME.? Yeah! You can! I have to admit, this one is pretty clever. This is a trick I learned just recently and it is pretty dang cool if you ask me.
Keeping up with constant emails while trying to stay focused is just impossible. I won’t get into too much of the science here, but it turns out that multitasking is actually not a real thing. Say what? Yup, what we think of as multitasking is actually the brain switching rapidly between two tasks. There are some types of tasks that this is better suited to of course.
For me, and I’m going to go out on a limb here and say probably you too, switching back and forth from my inbox, to say writing this post for example, isn’t the kind of switch I can do rapidly. I’d lose a lot of momentum in the process.
Setting up the auto-responder is a great way to take away the stress of feeling obligated to answer each and every email right away. You can let whoever is emailing you know that you’ve received their email and when they can expect to hear back from you. This allows you to return to your inbox on your own timeline, and put better attention into how you respond.
When you visit your inbox at a time you decide, you can be more mindful and present in that moment, opposed to maybe feeling rushed or overwhelmed.
2 Asana Project Management + A Simple Paper Notebook
Staying organized and setting goals is so important for us entrepreneurs. I use a combination of new and old technology to help me plan out my goals and tasks for the year, month, week, and day.
I’ve used a few different project management softwares over the years, but I’ve found that I just love Asana. Some alternatives include Trello, and Todoist. Asana allows me a variety of viewing options for each project, I can invite my clients to a shared project when we work together, and it gives me tons of control for tasks with multiple steps.
Here is a screenshot of a sample project for my Custom Website service.
The great news is that tons of tools are available in Asana for free. They do offer premium plans that offer greater flexibility as well.
I pair Asana with my old fashioned paper notebook. While the platform does have great little reward animations when you tick off a task, I’ve found that checking something physically off a list is super satisfying and tends to keep me on-task a little better than switching to the app multiple times a day.
I love to keep my bigger goals and to-do items in the Asana project management software, and my daily tasks in my paper notebook which lives right beside me at my workspace. I can easily review what I still have left to do for the day, and see all of the things I’ve accomplished (or not)!
3 Google Calendar
When it comes to my calendar, Google Calendar has me covered. It integrates so easily into my scheduling tool (I use Honeybook for this < that’s an affiliate link, it gets you a nice little discount to try out the platform, and I may get a little something from them if you stick around).
3.1 I’ve been using Honeybook for a few months now, and so far I’m loving it. It allows me to easily schedule free consult calls, or existing client calls without all the back and forth. I also can send all my contracts and invoices this way and even automate the entire project management process with auto emails and certain points. I still have yet to take full advantage of all the features. But I’ll be sure to let you know once I do! :)
Now, returning to our regularly scheduled programming…
With Google Calendar I’m able to stay up to date with meetings and appointments. I also use it for smaller reminders when creating an Asana task would just be overkill.
I really like to keep things simple. Google Calendar makes it easy for me to quickly check my availability so I can get back to serving clients and creating content for the blog.
4 Forest App
The Forest app is probably one of my favorite tools for focus by far! When I pair the Forest app up with my paper notebook with my daily tasks, I have been able to maintain an attention-span for much longer periods of time.
Okay, and the coolest thing about this app? You can help plant REAL trees on earth! Yep, you read that right, real trees! Each time you grow a virtual tree for your forest, you earn coins which can later be used to purchase specialty trees within the app, or to plant a real tree.
The “Forest team partners with a real-tree-planting organization, Trees for the Future, to plant real trees on Earth.” How sweet is that? Pretty sweet, right?
Here are a few screenshots from the Forest app.
The app allows users to set a focus time for as little as 10 minutes and up to 2 hours at a time. I find that my sweet spot is generally about an hour before I need to get up from my desk for a small or longer break from the screen.
5 Yoga + Meditation
As much as I enjoy all my digital and physical tools for promoting mindfulness and focus throughout my work day, nothing beats my yoga and meditation practice.
There is now a substantial amount of research confirming that yoga is an effective tool to increase body awareness, relieve stress, reduce tension and inflammation, calm and center the nervous system, and sharpen attention and concentration.
In hatha yoga we pair breath with movement. By relaxing deeply into yoga postures with just the power of our breath we can lower our brain’s response to threat. This results in a calmer mind and improved ability to make purposeful decisions. We practice presence on the mat so that we can be better equipped to practice it off the mat as well.
Meditation adds to this by allowing a place for us to simply be. Okay, I realize this is easier said than done, and building a meditation practice does not happen overnight. Honestly, I fall in and out of the practice, but just starting out with 1-5 minutes a day can lead to big changes. Just remember, that your best is good enough!
Sometimes I use the Insight Timer app, which allows you to just set a timer for your practice and also offers guided meditations.
There are many types of meditation, my favorite is just to focus on my breath. When thoughts come up, which they inevitably will, our job is to acknowledge them, and to simply let them pass and refocus onto the breath. This allows us to notice recurring thought patterns and can help us break the habit of negative patterns once we are aware of them.
Taking the time out for self-care like yoga and meditation seriously goes a long way in improving productivity throughout my work day. I sometimes argue that I don’t have time not to do it!
6 Mindful Breaks + Getting Outdoors
None of us is likely very good at staying mentally focused for several hours at a time with zero breaks. And I don’t mean just jumping up for that occasional bathroom break!
Taking mindful breaks throughout the day is really helpful. What I mean by mindful break is allowing your brain at least 5 minutes to rest. Immerse yourself fully into something else as simple as folding laundry, or eating a healthy snack. Just like the breathing meditation, see if you can notice stray thoughts and let them pass, recentering your attention on the present moment.
Taking this bit of time away from our work, can help us to better refocus when we return, and breathe a little energy back into us.
Okay, here is where I get a bit more sciency. Yes it’s a word, sciency!
Getting outdoors for fresh air is scientifically proven to promote the production of serotonin, allowing you to feel happier and less anxious, giving you a clearer, sharper, and calmer mind.
Fresh air, compared to indoor air, typically has higher oxygen levels. This means that more oxygen is able to circulate to your brain, helping you to feel energized and improve your ability to concentrate and remember information. Pretty awesome right?
There you have it! My 6 favorite Tools for Mindfulness + Focus as an Entrepreneur.
*Cue cheesy infomercial voice* “But wait, that’s not all…”
Practicing mindfulness requires learning and I work at it all the time. Here are a few of my favorite books on mindfulness that have helped me over the years. So…
7 Reading Books on Mindfulness
My All-Time Top 5 Favorite Books on Mindfulness
Each one of these books I’m about to share has had a profound effect on the person I am today and have helped me develop mindful practices and shift my perspective in order to create a life with more happiness. If you plan to read or have already read any of these please let me know in the comments!
A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose by Eckhart Tolle
Zen and the Art of Happiness by Chris Prentiss
You Are Here: Discovering the Magic of the Present Moment by Thich Nhat Hanh
Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life by Jon Kabat-Zinn
The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom by Don Miguel Ruiz
Do you have any other tools that I haven’t mentioned? I’d love to hear from you! Leave a comment below!
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