Reflective thought
Ten minutes in a quiet place, booked on the calendar as a meeting.
A short, deliberate sit in a quiet place where you calm your mind and reflect on the events of the day, both past and upcoming. Reach for it when meeting has followed meeting and you need to quiet your mind and get organized so that you can charge ahead with renewed vigor. He is firm that this is not a quick review of meeting notes or a glance at your schedule in the morning before everything busts loose; it is the intentional act of quieting your mind in a peaceful place, so that you can reflect on the past and address the future in a non-reactive way by mindfully living in the present.
How it goes
- Block out the time on your calendar and label it as a meeting, so that no one books over the top of your reflection time. Do not book it as personal time — if you work for a busy organization, that request will probably not be honored.
- Take the time to find a quiet place — a place of restful thinking that offers the peaceful environment you need to calm your mind. Close yourself off; an open door policy should be discarded for a few moments.
- Before settling in, review a few topics. That way your unconscious mind can work on some of them while you review the ones at the top of your mind.
- Sit in a comfortable chair and close your eyes.
- Calm yourself with mindfully aware breathing, or simply sit with your eyes closed listening to some pleasant music. He lights a candle when he is working in his own office at home, and notes it is probably not practical to do so in an office building.
- Reflect on the events of the day, past and upcoming. At first, your mind will wander.
- Keep it short. Ten minutes or so are quite enough for him.
A caution
He fences this practice twice. It is not an exercise in meditation — it is an opportunity to quiet your mind and get organized so that you can charge ahead with renewed vigor, which is why he holds it to about ten minutes rather than letting it stretch. And he raises the obvious objection to booking it as a meeting before you can: it may seem disingenuous, but it really is a meeting, with yourself. His reason for insisting on the time at all is plain. Without it you carry past injuries into the present and end up living in a fearful future that will most probably never come about.
I sit in a comfortable chair, close my eyes, calm myself with mindfully aware breathing and reflect. At first, your mind will wander.
— Middle Way Management and Reflective Thought