“In the morning, I’ll roll out of bed, drink a glass of water and immediately start my practice. No email. No TV. Just water and mediation.”

Steve Schlafman is a Principal at RRE Ventures, where he focuses on investing in early-stage startups including Breather (by Coach.me user Julien Smith), Giphy, and The Black Tux. He’s also a new meditator on a 54 day streak on Coach.me. We asked Steve about why he started meditating, how he’s fit the new habit into his busy schedule, and how daily meditation has made his life and work better so far.

24 straight days of meditation. The benefits have just started to reveal themselves. I feel more mindful, energy and productive than ever.

— Steve Schlafman (@schlaf) September 22, 2014

Why did you start meditating? What was your goal?

I started to meditate because I desperately wanted to spend less time in the past and the future and more time in the present.  Additionally, I tend to be a very anxious person so I was looking for a daily practice that ground me and calm my mind.  When I initially started, my goal was to practice least once a day and record how I felt after each session. I found it very easy to incorporate it into my daily routine.

What is your meditation routine?

The style of meditation that I learned is called Vedic. The idea is to practice twice a day for about twenty minutes.  I’ve adopted that schedule and have found it super easy to incorporate into my busy life.  I’ve made this a priority so each day I block out enough time to make sure I get in my fix.  In the morning, I’ll roll out of bed, drink a glass of water and immediately start my practice.  No email.  No TV. Just water and mediation. It’s the first thing I do every day.  In the afternoon when I’m about to hit a wall and I usually reach for sugar and caffeine, I’ll lock myself in a conference room or my office for a quick session. Before I started to meditate I’d usually take fifteen to twenty minutes in the afternoon for coffee so finding a bit of extra time wasn’t an issue.

What benefits have you noticed in the first month of practicing?

I’m a lot more patient and I don’t let small things bother me. Before I embarked on this journey, I would stress about things that were in the past or future and totally out of my control. Meditation has helped me become more mindful of my emotions. Previously I found myself running around and trying to do a million things at once. It was very hard to notice how I was truly thinking and feeling. By incorporating meditation into my daily habits, I’ve become more aware to my environment, others around me and the people I’m interacting with. Over the summer and prior to meditating, I read the book, ‘The Power of Now,’ and it helped me prepare my mind for deeper awareness.

Can you tell me a story about how meditation improved your performance?

I’ve only been meditating now for about fifty days so I’m still very new on this journey. My friends and colleagues at work claim that my ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) is virtually gone. I find that to be a huge complement because I’ve always had a hard time sitting still.

Do you think meditation gives you a competitive edge?

Absolutely. I fundamentally believe it’s important to slow down a few times each day and allow my body and mind to rest. Most importantly, setting an intention during the meditation helps me focus on a certain aspect of work and/or life. When I finish a meditation session, I’m able to focus on what’s in front of me for the next three to six hours. Most importantly, I don’t hold on to things in the future and the past which helps me open up mental space for what’s in front of me.

Get your free chapter of The Strongest Mind in the Room: How Meditation Boosts Human Performance. Find free guided meditations on our How to Meditate Coach.me Guide.

[Tweet “Why @RRE’s @schlaf kicks off his mornings with meditation”]

“In the morning, I’ll roll out of bed, drink a glass of water and immediately start my practice. No email. No TV. Just water and mediation.”

Steve Schlafman is a Principal at RRE Ventures, where he focuses on investing in early-stage startups including Breather (by Coach.me user Julien Smith), Giphy, and The Black Tux. He’s also a new meditator on a 54 day streak on Coach.me. We asked Steve about why he started meditating, how he’s fit the new habit into his busy schedule, and how daily meditation has made his life and work better so far.

24 straight days of meditation. The benefits have just started to reveal themselves. I feel more mindful, energy and productive than ever.
— Steve Schlafman (@schlaf) September 22, 2014

Why did you start meditating? What was your goal?

I started to meditate because I desperately wanted to spend less time in the past and the future and more time in the present.  Additionally, I tend to be a very anxious person so I was looking for a daily practice that ground me and calm my mind.  When I initially started, my goal was to practice least once a day and record how I felt after each session. I found it very easy to incorporate it into my daily routine.

What is your meditation routine?

The style of meditation that I learned is called Vedic. The idea is to practice twice a day for about twenty minutes.  I’ve adopted that schedule and have found it super easy to incorporate into my busy life.  I’ve made this a priority so each day I block out enough time to make sure I get in my fix.  In the morning, I’ll roll out of bed, drink a glass of water and immediately start my practice.  No email.  No TV. Just water and mediation. It’s the first thing I do every day.  In the afternoon when I’m about to hit a wall and I usually reach for sugar and caffeine, I’ll lock myself in a conference room or my office for a quick session. Before I started to meditate I’d usually take fifteen to twenty minutes in the afternoon for coffee so finding a bit of extra time wasn’t an issue.

What benefits have you noticed in the first month of practicing?

I’m a lot more patient and I don’t let small things bother me. Before I embarked on this journey, I would stress about things that were in the past or future and totally out of my control. Meditation has helped me become more mindful of my emotions. Previously I found myself running around and trying to do a million things at once. It was very hard to notice how I was truly thinking and feeling. By incorporating meditation into my daily habits, I’ve become more aware to my environment, others around me and the people I’m interacting with. Over the summer and prior to meditating, I read the book, ‘The Power of Now,’ and it helped me prepare my mind for deeper awareness.

Can you tell me a story about how meditation improved your performance?

I’ve only been meditating now for about fifty days so I’m still very new on this journey. My friends and colleagues at work claim that my ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) is virtually gone. I find that to be a huge complement because I’ve always had a hard time sitting still.

Do you think meditation gives you a competitive edge?

Absolutely. I fundamentally believe it’s important to slow down a few times each day and allow my body and mind to rest. Most importantly, setting an intention during the meditation helps me focus on a certain aspect of work and/or life. When I finish a meditation session, I’m able to focus on what’s in front of me for the next three to six hours. Most importantly, I don’t hold on to things in the future and the past which helps me open up mental space for what’s in front of me.

Get your free chapter of The Strongest Mind in the Room: How Meditation Boosts Human Performance. Find free guided meditations on our How to Meditate Coach.me Guide.

[Tweet “Why @RRE’s @schlaf kicks off his mornings with meditation”]

“I am a first-time experiencer of all of the ups and downs that come with starting an enterprise from scratch.”

Priti Patel is the founder and CEO of MindPoint, where she teaches companies how to incorporate mindfulness and meditation into their workspace for the benefit and health of their employees.  Part of what makes Priti a great meditation teacher is that she can identify with her students: meditation helped her manage stress when she worked in finance at General Electric. Priti also meditated in business school and taught and inspired many of her peers to do so, too.  She told us what inspired her to dive into meditation and how it’s helped her as a new entrepreneur.

Why did you start meditating? What was your goal?

I realized I was missing a sense of fulfillment in my life. Even though I was living a great life, traveling the world and was in good health, I knew something was missing. That prompted me to quit my job in Corporate America, take a month off and live in an ashram in India nestled in the Himalayan Mountains on the banks of the Ganges River.

I arrived with no goal. I just knew I was interested in meditation by way of my yoga practice. Before I did the month of immersion in meditation and silence, I had only experienced a few glimpses of how amazing meditation could be while on the yoga mat. The experience granted me a sense of clarity along with a sense of appreciation and awareness for ‘the now’ that I was looking for.

What is your meditation routine?

I am always learning and therefore always modifying my routine (or ‘route-in’ as my beloved teacher calls it), but broadly speaking, I spend 20 minutes meditating every morning. Sometimes, if I have had a rather ‘mind-less’ day, I will choose to do an additional 20 minutes in the evening before going to bed. I will occasionally incorporate different styles of meditation which come in many forms – lying down, walking, and even dancing!

Can you tell me a story about how meditation improved your performance, productivity, creativity, or leadership?

Meditation allows me to practice equanimity, which can be defined as evenness in temper regardless of the situation. As a new business owner, equanimity is crucial for me. I am a first-time experiencer of all of the ups and downs that come with starting an enterprise from scratch. There are days where the news received can be really disheartening, and days where I am on cloud nine. Not to mention there is a constant pressure I place on myself to prove to the world my idea is worth buying.

Due to circumstances out of MindPoint’s control, we recently lost our first long-term contract with a customer. The old me would have let those emotions and stress take me as low as they wanted. However, by practicing equanimity, I was able to remove myself from the situations and witness my emotions without attachment or self-judgment. Not only did I bounce back quicker, I also found myself immediately ready to learn from the situation and make improvements for the future.

Do you think meditation gives you a competitive edge? Why?

Absolutely – my mindfulness practice allows me to accomplish more in a day, prioritize my goals better, and stay more focused and calm even when stress should be eating me alive.

But, I didn’t keep these benefits a secret, so I guess it isn’t a competitive edge except when you compare it against my old self. I just received my MBA from Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. As a top 5 ranked business school, the stress at Kellogg is palpable and stems from competing priorities that all students juggle: recruiting, networking, academic and extracurricular obligations. When I realized how beneficial mindfulness was for me, I shared ‘my edge’ with all my peers by teaching free mindfulness classes in our student lounge. The experience served as the inspiration for my business, MindPoint. I also hosted a panel with 3 of Kellogg’s top professors to discuss how mindfulness helped them find professional success. Over 200 of my peers attended, which was incredible testament that mindfulness had impacted and helped my peers as well.

What continues to motivate you to meditate regularly?

When I was living at the ashram, the transformation I underwent was by no means immediate, and I was discouraged many times. Meditation requires practice and is a lifelong journey, I was told. It took me a while to accept that my experience would be different every time I sat on the cushion. I also had to learn to not form expectations of what my experience would be before I even sat down for meditation.

Now that I am able to do that, I am motivated by the fact that I will simply enjoy and witness whatever comes up in my practice. This acceptance for what is has illuminated my life well beyond my meditations and impacts the way I perceive my life and the world. I encourage all readers to have patience with their practice and to stay curious without judgment. And then, as my teacher says, “simply experience the difference that experience makes.”

Get your free chapter of The Strongest Mind in the Room: How Meditation Boosts Human Performance. Find free guided meditations on our How to Meditate Coach.me Guide.

[Tweet “How I Meditate: @coachdotme interviews @mindpointinc founder Priti Patel”]

Sit better and stop crouching

Certain sitting positions are healthier than others. It’s important to get rid of the crouching position that is extremely common at desk jobs. It’s far healthier to lean backwards in a relaxed position at about 135 degrees.

Try to maintain good posture throughout the day. For the first few days it might be helpful to set a reminder every hour or so to check your posture, but eventually you’ll naturally notice yourself falling out of good posture.

Sit on an exercise ball

Exercise balls are popular chair replacements since they’re cheap (and fun!). The research is mixed as to whether exercise balls really improve your posture, but .

Use a foot stool

Like most furniture, generic chairs are built for generic people, usually 5 foot 8 males. Anyone shorter than that usually has their feet dangling or in an uncomfortable, unstable position. Try using a foot stool or making your own with blocks so that the bottom of your feet touch the “floor” while your sitting. You can try resting your feet on a chair or beam if your desk design allows that.

Work on the sofa

Just because your doing office work doesn’t mean that you have to sit at a desk and chair, especially if you’re using a computer. Try sitting at different sofas, chairs, and spots around the office to find out ones that might be more comfortable for you and encourage you to keep a better posture.

Take regular active breaks

If you prefer a sitting desk, try taking a work break every 30-60 minutes that gets you out of your chair. You can walk around the office perimeter, stand up for 5 minutes, or do desk push-ups. Studies show that modest exercise throughout the day, including walking and standing, can be more beneficial for your health than intense bouts of exercise broken up by long periods of inactivity.

Have walking meetings

Walking meetings are a productivity trick of famous achievers including Barack Obama, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg. You can walk and talk in a park nearby the office, around the block, or a low-key hiking trail if you’re lucky to be close to nature. There’s more benefits to walking meetings, too: movement and changes of scenery can also boost your creativity.

Do a set of push-ups or pull-ups before going to the bathroom

Take advantage of your body’s natural break cue by doing something active each time you have to take bathroom break. Standing push-ups are probably the easiest exercise to do. Behavior researcher B.J. Fogg set up a pull-up bar so that he could fit some pull-ups in every time he goes to the bathroom.

Be more active during your commute

If you must be sedentary at work, try exercising on your way to and from the office. Start small by standing instead of sitting on the train or bus, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, or parking in the farthest spot in the parking lot. If the distance and weather allows, try walking or biking to work.

How often does this happen to you: you start the week with a list of very feasible goals but by Friday, the project launch has been pushed to next week, the blog post remains in draft mode, and sales calls haven’t been made.

No one knows busy days quite like entrepreneurs so we asked some of them what habits they rely on to keep their productivity high.

Click to read the productivity strategies used by founders of companies like Twitter, LeWeb and Buffer:

Evan Williams: Workout When You’re Least Productive
Erin McKean: Schedule Easy, Small Tasks as Work Breaks
Loïc Le Meur: Meditate – It’s the Productivity Trick People Are Afraid to Talk About
Chris Messina: Build Tiny Habits: They Can Be Surprisingly Powerful
Joel Gascoigne: Optimize Your Daily Routines
Buster Benson: Experiment with New Habits Regularly
Marshall Kirkpatrick: Hack the Science of Behavior Change

Download Lift’s iPhone App or Join the web beta

Thanks to all of the entrepreneurs featured and to Power Lifters Jason Shen, Erika Carlson, Lauren Bacon, Mark Suman and Peter Boyce II and Walter Chen.

Evan Williams isn’t at work in the middle of the day. You’ll find the founder of Blogger, Twitter and Medium at the gym instead. 

The potential for productivity fluctuates at different times of the day for different people. Clue into your energy changes and then plan your work schedule so that you’re doing your most important work during your most productive times. 

I used to go to the gym first thing in the morning. Exercise is, of course, great for energy levels and I believe it makes me more productive no matter what. But energy and focus naturally ebb and flow throughout the day.

My focus is usually great first thing in the morning, so going to the gym first is a trade off of very productive time. Instead, I’ve started going mid-morning or late afternoon (especially on days I work late). It feels weird (at first) to leave the office in the middle of the day, but total time spent is nearly the same with higher energy and focus across the board.

This only happens to work because our office is across the street from the gym (which is part of the reason the office is there). If there were more travel time involved, it might not be worth it (or it might be worth switching how you exercise). 

More productivity tips from entrepreneurs:

Erin McKean: Schedule Easy, Small Tasks as Work Breaks
Loïc Le Meur: Meditate – It’s the Productivity Trick People Are Afraid to Talk About
Chris Messina: Build Tiny Habits: They Can Be Surprisingly Powerful
Joel Gascoigne: Optimize Your Daily Routines
Buster Benson: Experiment with New Habits Regularly
Marshall Kirkpatrick: Hack the Science of Behavior Change

All of these entrepreneurs have built habits with Lift. 

Download Lift’s iPhone App

Sign up for the web beta

Evan Williams isn’t at work in the middle of the day. You’ll find the founder of Blogger, Twitter and Medium at the gym instead. 

The potential for productivity fluctuates at different times of the day for different people. Clue into your energy changes and then plan your work schedule so that you’re doing your most important work during your most productive times. 

I used to go to the gym first thing in the morning. Exercise is, of course, great for energy levels and I believe it makes me more productive no matter what. But energy and focus naturally ebb and flow throughout the day.

My focus is usually great first thing in the morning, so going to the gym first is a trade off of very productive time. Instead, I’ve started going mid-morning or late afternoon (especially on days I work late). It feels weird (at first) to leave the office in the middle of the day, but total time spent is nearly the same with higher energy and focus across the board.

This only happens to work because our office is across the street from the gym (which is part of the reason the office is there). If there were more travel time involved, it might not be worth it (or it might be worth switching how you exercise). 

More productivity tips from entrepreneurs:

Erin McKean: Schedule Easy, Small Tasks as Work Breaks
Loïc Le Meur: Meditate – It’s the Productivity Trick People Are Afraid to Talk About
Chris Messina: Build Tiny Habits: They Can Be Surprisingly Powerful
Joel Gascoigne: Optimize Your Daily Routines
Buster Benson: Experiment with New Habits Regularly
Marshall Kirkpatrick: Hack the Science of Behavior Change

All of these entrepreneurs have built habits with Lift. 

Download Lift’s iPhone App

Sign up for the web beta

The godfather of behavior change apps Buster Benson learned a lot when building quantified self startups like 43 Things, Health Month and 750 Words. He discovered his most productive habit, writing, by trying new habits until he found the productivity hack that worked best for him.

Pay attention to the actions you take during the day to find out what habits make you more or less effective. Buster tracks everything: emails, tweets, photos, meals, exercise, meditation, mood levels, words, etc. He’s still trying out new habits like meditation and running, too. You don’t have track habits as intensely as Buster, but you could learn a lot about what makes you more productive by experimenting with new routines and reflecting on the results.

All of my favorite daily habits include letting some unfiltered stream-of-consciousness to the surface. Walking to and from work, meditating, and taking a picture at 8:36pm all fit this pattern. However, the most valuable of these unfiltered streams has been my habit of writing 3 pages of unfiltered, stream-of-consciousness, brain-dump *BLAH* on 750words.com.

The actual words rarely matter, it’s all about getting them out. It’s the best way I currently know that consistently helps me untangle something that’s bothering me, solve problems that I can’t quite articulate, or get something out of my system so I can move on. I always feel noticeably lighter after writing 750 words.

More productivity tips from entrepreneurs:

Evan Williams: Workout When You’re Least Productive
Erin McKean: Schedule Easy, Small Tasks as Work Breaks
Loïc Le Meur: Meditate – It’s the Productivity Trick People Are Afraid to Talk About
Chris Messina: Build Tiny Habits: They Can Be Surprisingly Powerful
Joel Gascoigne: Optimize Your Daily Routines
Marshall Kirkpatrick: Hack the Science of Behavior Change

There is one thing that all of these entrepreneurs have in common: they’ve all built habits using Lift. 

Download Lift’s iPhone App

Sign up for the web beta

Cuando se trata de los mejores casinos online por dinero real, la República Dominicana es uno de los mayores mercados de juego del mundo. Si vives en la República Dominicana, tienes cientos de sitios estupendos entre los que elegir. Consulte aquí https://www.casino-dominicana.com . Puede jugar en las versiones en línea de los establecimientos de juego de grandes marcas que ve en la calle, o en una de las marcas de casinos en línea que ofrecen emocionantes juegos para los jugadores dominicanos.

Erin McKean, the founder of the online dictionary Wordnik, interrupts her schedule with small, easy tasks in order to increase her productivity.

What’s the science behind “productive” distractions? Dr. Shelley Carson of Harvard University discovered that focusing on a problem limits creativity because you become more selective when responding to brain signals.  Switching to a task that requires less focus reverses the bias and therefore increases your ability to think creatively.

Working on something else is a great way to clear your mind of the ‘primary problems.’ There’s only so far you can run and only so many showers you can take to try to trigger that creative distance. Sometimes stepping away from the problem is the best way to solve it.

When I want a little break, I look at my daily Lift goals and tackle one of them. I like Robert Benchley’s maxim: Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn’t the work he is supposed be doing at that moment.” Doing that ‘work I’m not supposed to be doing’ is much more productive than looking at funny cat pictures!

More productivity tips from entrepreneurs:

Evan Williams: Workout When You’re Least Productive
Loïc Le Meur: Meditate – It’s the Productivity Trick People Are Afraid to Talk About
Chris Messina: Build Tiny Habits: They Can Be Surprisingly Powerful
Joel Gascoigne: Optimize Your Daily Routines
Buster Benson: Experiment with New Habits Regularly
Marshall Kirkpatrick: Hack the Science of Behavior Change

There is one thing that all of these entrepreneurs have in common: they’ve all built habits using Lift. 

Download Lift’s iPhone App

Sign up for the web beta