Symptoms: You frequently find your mind racing and its hard to focus on anything. You find it hard to switch between cognitively different tasks and that’s a frequent point of failure for you.
Mental Reflex: Internal Clearing
Trigger: Internal Loudness
Description: The threshold at which your internal chatter begins to be “too much.”
Exercise: Begin to make a list of small tasks you want to focus on. As you list each one, ask your brain to keep thinking about it as you list the next one. You’ll quickly get a sense of internal “loudness” where your mind is racing and its’ hard to keep more items in your head. There’s a threshold when things get “too loud”. That threshold is your trigger.
Action: The 9 Breaths Technique
Description: The 9 breaths technique is a centering exercise that lets you “Loving Snooze” your worries, previous intentions, feelings, and mental chatter. Note that ‘9 breaths’ is aspirational. At first, it might take you much more than 9 breaths to go through the exercise. As you get more skilled, you may be able to compress it in to 9 long, slow, and deep breaths.
Form:
First 3 Breaths—Body Relaxation: For your first 3 breaths, you’ll be focusing on relaxing your body. As you breath in, you’ll scan for areas of tension or discomfort, and as you breath out, you’ll relax those muscles and settle into comfort. You’ll do this 3 times, each time scanning for areas of body tension you missed on the previous breath.
Second 3 Breaths—Your Timeline: As you move into the next 3 breaths, you’ll create a visual, auditory, or kinesthetic representation of your past, present, and future. I like to imagine a rope floating in the wind, with 3 sections of the rope for past present and future. For your first breaths, as you breath in, you’ll gather up all the things you care about from your past. Your regrets, things your proud of, things you’re confused about. As you breath out, you’ll “loving snooze” all of that, promising to bring it back up when its’ relevant. You’ll let that part of your representation float away. On the second breath, you’ll do the same for your future. All your hopes, dreams, predictions, uncertainties. And on the 3rd, you’ll do the same for your present, any current intentions, worries, and thought streams.
Last 3 Breaths—Your Self Concepts: For the last 3 breaths, you’ll loving snooze 3 different representations of yourself. The first is your “ideal self”. The person you want to be. All your values and goals, the blueprint of who you want to be in your head. The second is your “social self”. All of the things you try to be for others, the ways you want to appear and look and seem. Finally, your “perceived self”, all of the ways you think you are. Things about yourself you know or are proud of or are insecure about.
Exercise 1: Go through the previous exercise to make your mind race. Then, take as long as you need on each section of 3d breaths, to really feel what it’s like to quiet your mind using this technique. Get a sense of your own good form for each section
Exercise 2: Once you’ve gotten a sense of each section, try to loop through the technique a few times, each time only taking 3 breaths for each section. Experiment now with how close you can get to total quiet with only 3 breaths for each section.
Reflex: If Internal Loudness then 9 Breaths Technique
Exercise: Imagine a version of yourself that finds this mental reflex easy, fun, and intrinsically rewarding. In your head, as that person, rehearse 5 times a situation in the recent past or the future, and how you would react as that person.
Mental Reflex: External Clearing
Trigger: External Loudness
Description: The threshold at which external distractions begin to be “too much.”
Exercise 1: Close your eyes, and run your 9 breaths technique to quiet your mind. Then. open your eyes, and scan the area you’re in from left to right with your eyes, ears, and other senses. Notice how things in your external environment can be “loud” in the sense that they stir up internal chatter and feelings. Note that this “loudness” isn’t good or bad, it depends on the task the “level” of loudness (less cognitively demanding tasks may require more loudness) as well as the “flavor” of loudness (different tasks may require different attitudes and thoughts).The goal is simply to get a sense of what its’ like for an object to be loud for you.
Exercise 2: As you begin to sweep around the room this time, begin to make your environment louder. This may involve making things messier, or less aesthetically pleasing. The goal is to get a sense of your “loudness threshold”, that is, the level at which for the given task the external environment is too loud.
Action: Area Sweep
Description: Use “desire contrasting” to get your space to the ideal level, flavor of loudness for your current task.
Form
Close your eyes, think about your task, and having completed it ease.
Ask yourself, what mental state was I in to facilitate this ease?
Ask yourself, what level/flavor of external loudness do I need to get into this state?
Open your eyes, and sweep the room from left to right with your eyes and ears. Overlay the feeling of that ideal level of loudness on top of the loudness you’re actually getting, and let yourself tidy up/change the space to match that ideal level and flavor.
Note: The most common actions I do during my area sweep are closing tabs in my browser/programs on my computer, and tidying my desk.
Exercise: Cycle through a few tasks on your todo list. As you do, run through the area sweep action and see what its’ like to rearrange your space to be ready for that action.
Reflex: If External loudness then Area Sweep.
Exercise: Imagine a version of yourself that finds this mental reflex easy, fun, and intrinsically rewarding. In your head, as that person, rehearse 5 times a situation in the recent past or the future, and how you would react as that person.
Mental Reflex: Context Clearing
Trigger: Large Context Switch
Description: Your mind is switching to a vastly different mode that requires vastly different modes of thought. (The most common time I find myself doing a large context switch is going from break to pomodoro, and pomodoro to break.)
Exercise:
Switch between the following 4 activities, giving 2-3 minutes for each.
Count up by 7′s, starting at 4.
Count up by 2′s, starting at 3.
Strategize about a relationship issue, either a problem or improvement to a relationship you have.
Make a timeline in order, of all the things you can remember about your country’s history.
The goal is to notice the difference between a small context switch (counting by 3′s and counting by 2′s) and a large context switch (switching between counting, relationship strategizing, and timeline creating). Your trigger is the large context switch.
Reflex: If Large Context Switch, then Area Sweep and 9 Breaths Technique
Exercise: Imagine a version of yourself that finds this mental reflex easy, fun, and intrinsically rewarding. In your head, as that person, rehearse 5 times a situation in the recent past or the future, and how you would react as that person.
Meditation Exercise:
For 10 minutes you’ll think about “things you want to do,:
For each item, you’ll first do your external clearing to get the ideal level of loudness.
Then your internal clearing to clear internal loudness.
You won’t actually work on the item, but simply loving snooze the item you’re on and choose a different one for the next loop.
Deliberate Work Session Exercise
You’ll make a list of 5 items that you can make progress on in 5 minutes or less, each of which represents a large context switch from the previous.
For each item, you’ll do you’ll internal clearing.
Then, you’ll do your external clearing.
Then, you’ll work on the item for 5 minutes.
Finally, you’ll loving snooze that item and move to the next one, restarting from step 2.
Conscious Work Session Exercise
Go through a normal work session, using pomodoros.
At the end of each pomodoro, ask yourself if you succesfully used this cognitive strategy when you needed it. Ask yourself what was good about your form, and what needed to be improved.
Try to remain a bit more conscious of these items in your next pomodoro.
Cognitive Strategy: Intention Clearing
Symptoms: You frequently find your mind racing and its hard to focus on anything. You find it hard to switch between cognitively different tasks and that’s a frequent point of failure for you.
Mental Reflex: Internal Clearing
Trigger: Internal Loudness
Description: The threshold at which your internal chatter begins to be “too much.”
Exercise: Begin to make a list of small tasks you want to focus on. As you list each one, ask your brain to keep thinking about it as you list the next one. You’ll quickly get a sense of internal “loudness” where your mind is racing and its’ hard to keep more items in your head. There’s a threshold when things get “too loud”. That threshold is your trigger.
Action: The 9 Breaths Technique
Description: The 9 breaths technique is a centering exercise that lets you “Loving Snooze” your worries, previous intentions, feelings, and mental chatter. Note that ‘9 breaths’ is aspirational. At first, it might take you much more than 9 breaths to go through the exercise. As you get more skilled, you may be able to compress it in to 9 long, slow, and deep breaths.
Form:
First 3 Breaths—Body Relaxation: For your first 3 breaths, you’ll be focusing on relaxing your body. As you breath in, you’ll scan for areas of tension or discomfort, and as you breath out, you’ll relax those muscles and settle into comfort. You’ll do this 3 times, each time scanning for areas of body tension you missed on the previous breath.
Second 3 Breaths—Your Timeline: As you move into the next 3 breaths, you’ll create a visual, auditory, or kinesthetic representation of your past, present, and future. I like to imagine a rope floating in the wind, with 3 sections of the rope for past present and future. For your first breaths, as you breath in, you’ll gather up all the things you care about from your past. Your regrets, things your proud of, things you’re confused about. As you breath out, you’ll “loving snooze” all of that, promising to bring it back up when its’ relevant. You’ll let that part of your representation float away. On the second breath, you’ll do the same for your future. All your hopes, dreams, predictions, uncertainties. And on the 3rd, you’ll do the same for your present, any current intentions, worries, and thought streams.
Last 3 Breaths—Your Self Concepts: For the last 3 breaths, you’ll loving snooze 3 different representations of yourself. The first is your “ideal self”. The person you want to be. All your values and goals, the blueprint of who you want to be in your head. The second is your “social self”. All of the things you try to be for others, the ways you want to appear and look and seem. Finally, your “perceived self”, all of the ways you think you are. Things about yourself you know or are proud of or are insecure about.
Exercise 1: Go through the previous exercise to make your mind race. Then, take as long as you need on each section of 3d breaths, to really feel what it’s like to quiet your mind using this technique. Get a sense of your own good form for each section
Exercise 2: Once you’ve gotten a sense of each section, try to loop through the technique a few times, each time only taking 3 breaths for each section. Experiment now with how close you can get to total quiet with only 3 breaths for each section.
Reflex: If Internal Loudness then 9 Breaths Technique
Exercise: Imagine a version of yourself that finds this mental reflex easy, fun, and intrinsically rewarding. In your head, as that person, rehearse 5 times a situation in the recent past or the future, and how you would react as that person.
Mental Reflex: External Clearing
Trigger: External Loudness
Description: The threshold at which external distractions begin to be “too much.”
Exercise 1: Close your eyes, and run your 9 breaths technique to quiet your mind. Then. open your eyes, and scan the area you’re in from left to right with your eyes, ears, and other senses. Notice how things in your external environment can be “loud” in the sense that they stir up internal chatter and feelings. Note that this “loudness” isn’t good or bad, it depends on the task the “level” of loudness (less cognitively demanding tasks may require more loudness) as well as the “flavor” of loudness (different tasks may require different attitudes and thoughts). The goal is simply to get a sense of what its’ like for an object to be loud for you.
Exercise 2: As you begin to sweep around the room this time, begin to make your environment louder. This may involve making things messier, or less aesthetically pleasing. The goal is to get a sense of your “loudness threshold”, that is, the level at which for the given task the external environment is too loud.
Action: Area Sweep
Description: Use “desire contrasting” to get your space to the ideal level, flavor of loudness for your current task.
Form
Close your eyes, think about your task, and having completed it ease.
Ask yourself, what mental state was I in to facilitate this ease?
Ask yourself, what level/flavor of external loudness do I need to get into this state?
Open your eyes, and sweep the room from left to right with your eyes and ears. Overlay the feeling of that ideal level of loudness on top of the loudness you’re actually getting, and let yourself tidy up/change the space to match that ideal level and flavor.
Note: The most common actions I do during my area sweep are closing tabs in my browser/programs on my computer, and tidying my desk.
Exercise: Cycle through a few tasks on your todo list. As you do, run through the area sweep action and see what its’ like to rearrange your space to be ready for that action.
Reflex: If External loudness then Area Sweep.
Exercise: Imagine a version of yourself that finds this mental reflex easy, fun, and intrinsically rewarding. In your head, as that person, rehearse 5 times a situation in the recent past or the future, and how you would react as that person.
Mental Reflex: Context Clearing
Trigger: Large Context Switch
Description: Your mind is switching to a vastly different mode that requires vastly different modes of thought. (The most common time I find myself doing a large context switch is going from break to pomodoro, and pomodoro to break.)
Exercise:
Switch between the following 4 activities, giving 2-3 minutes for each.
Count up by 7′s, starting at 4.
Count up by 2′s, starting at 3.
Strategize about a relationship issue, either a problem or improvement to a relationship you have.
Make a timeline in order, of all the things you can remember about your country’s history.
The goal is to notice the difference between a small context switch (counting by 3′s and counting by 2′s) and a large context switch (switching between counting, relationship strategizing, and timeline creating). Your trigger is the large context switch.
Reflex: If Large Context Switch, then Area Sweep and 9 Breaths Technique
Exercise: Imagine a version of yourself that finds this mental reflex easy, fun, and intrinsically rewarding. In your head, as that person, rehearse 5 times a situation in the recent past or the future, and how you would react as that person.
Meditation Exercise:
For 10 minutes you’ll think about “things you want to do,:
For each item, you’ll first do your external clearing to get the ideal level of loudness.
Then your internal clearing to clear internal loudness.
You won’t actually work on the item, but simply loving snooze the item you’re on and choose a different one for the next loop.
Deliberate Work Session Exercise
You’ll make a list of 5 items that you can make progress on in 5 minutes or less, each of which represents a large context switch from the previous.
For each item, you’ll do you’ll internal clearing.
Then, you’ll do your external clearing.
Then, you’ll work on the item for 5 minutes.
Finally, you’ll loving snooze that item and move to the next one, restarting from step 2.
Conscious Work Session Exercise
Go through a normal work session, using pomodoros.
At the end of each pomodoro, ask yourself if you succesfully used this cognitive strategy when you needed it. Ask yourself what was good about your form, and what needed to be improved.
Try to remain a bit more conscious of these items in your next pomodoro.