42 Ways to be More Mindful

Meditation & Mindfulness

Our take is that meditation is the foundational training for almost everything in any of the sections in this guide. Meditation gives you the awareness and control over your mind that lets you make good decisions and take consistent action.

Meditation skills:

Alternative meditations:

Guided meditation:

Mindfulness exercises:

Applied mindfulness:

Journaling

Best used in conjunction with meditation, journaling is another way to develop mindfulness and build awareness of your subconscious. In the productivity work that I’ve been involved in, journaling is often a faster and more direct way to achieve your goals.

Start here:

Journaling with a goal in mind:

Cognitive Bias

A huge part of mindfulness is overcoming the many ways your mind tricks you into believing things that aren’t true.

Start with these two articles. The first gives you the breadth of cognitive biases and the second gives you a skill that will let you spot when you are wrong and change your mind:

The remaining articles are ways to spot and overcome biases, and to build mental habits for thinking more clearly and rationally:

Anxiety & Anger

The boss who gave me my first promotion was enthusiastically cynical and gave me this great advice: “You are going to love everything about being a manager, except for the people.” People trigger our emotions and we need to learn how to deal with that:

Then, on top of the feelings other people pull out of us, we also carry an incredible amount of self-created fear, anxiety, and stress. Here are ways to manage and overcome that: