Mindfulness considered, every day

I was just reading a wonderful post on Zen Habits entitled The Mindfulness Guide for the Super Busy: How to Live Life to the Fullest that really captures a theme I’ve been exploring a lot lately, which is the importance of being mindful.  Many of us spend much our time not noticing where we are, because we’re always busy thinking about the next thing we’re going to do. If we always think about tomorrow, we never really are aware of today.  I’ve noticed that this is a terrible habit because it really interferes with one’s ability to have a meaningful conversation, or simply enjoy all the good things around one,  because one just isn’t paying attention.   It’s very hard really to be mindful, because one does have so many thoughts, and often these thoughts are useful and important.  The trick is to notice when one is thinking, and make a conscious decision to either return to the moment or continue with the thought.  If one practices one can focus the mind, on either observing intently or thinking intently.  Doing this is a little opposed to the popular habit of multitasking, but the skeptic in me says that a lot of multitasking is simply doing a bunch of things in a somewat mediocre or sketchy way.  If you really want to talk to someone, give them ALL your attention. To listen to a concert,  just LISTEN to the music. And if you want to design an algorithm,  JUST think about that algorithm. This discipline can really improve the quality of your life and thoughts.