Most productivity writing is about tips for organizing our workspace — creative ways to arrange our e-mail inbox, write to-do lists, color-code folders, and so on.  These techniques can be useful, but they don’t deal with one of the biggest obstacles to getting our work done:  our own minds.

As I’ll bet you’ve experienced, if your attention is scattered, you feel sluggish and unmotivated, or you’re paralyzed with anxiety about what others will think of your work, it’s going to be tough to make the kind of progress you want, no matter how well-organized your e-mail is.

With practice you may soon discover that many of the ideas and techniques used in meditation can also be applied “in real time” — while sitting at your desk working on a project.

1. Focus on Your Breathing

Meditators often concentrate on their breathing to stay alert, and keep their minds from drifting into memories of the past or concerns about the future.  I’ve found that this technique isn’t only helpful during meditation — it also works great whenever we find ourselves getting distracted at work.  We can focus on our breathing to bring our attention back to this moment, and to what we’re doing.

Many meditation teachers explain why this works by observing that, whenever we focus our attention on what’s happening in our bodies, our awareness naturally settles into the present.  If I ask you to pay attention to your breathing, you probably won’t start daydreaming about the way you used to breathe five years ago — you’ll focus on the act and experience of breathing right now.

When your attention comes back to the present, the memories and worries that may have been bothering you fade into the background, and you can easily return to your work.

2. Let Your Experience Be

In meditation, as in the rest of our lives, uncomfortable thoughts and sensations sometimes come up — perhaps anxiety, resentment, boredom, or something else.  Meditation teachers often invite us to just let these experiences be, rather than trying to push them away and think about something pleasant.  This approach isn’t just useful in meditation — it’s also helpful when we’re struggling with procrastination at work.

When we start to feel bored, frustrated, or conflicted at work, most of us are in the habit of “taking the edge off” by turning to some distracting activity — checking e-mail, Facebook, or going after just “one more” cup of coffee.  The trouble is thawhen we distract ourselves from sensations we don’t like, we also take our attention away from our work.

The next time difficult thoughts and sensations come up for you at work just keep breathing, relax your body, and let the feeling pass away on its own.

What you may notice, as you practice allowing that thought or sensation to be without resisting, is that it will pass away quickly — perhaps within a few seconds or minutes.  When it dissipates, you can return your attention to your work.

The more you practice this, the more comfortable and familiar that experience will become.  You’ll become able to make progress in a task at work, even when that discomfort is coming up.

3. Practice Holding Your Attention

This exercise, which is based on a meditation some Zen practitioners do, is very simple.  Pick an object in the room.  It doesn’t matter what it is — it could be a spot on the wall, a paper clip on your desk, or a plant (I like using plants because they’re alive, yet they don’t move around).  For a few minutes, simply hold your gaze on that object. I find it’s best to start with a short period as you begin…. you’ll be very surprised just HOW MUCH thought it occurring.

As you do this you’ll notice your attention drifting off.  Maybe it will float away into thoughts about the past or future.  Perhaps you’ll find your eyes darting around the room, looking for something more interesting because you feel this is boring.  Whatever happens, when you notice your attention floating away, gently bring it back to the object you’re looking at.

With a little practice your thoughts will start to drift less and less often. In other words, you’ll begin developing a longer attention span.

As you can probably see, this is a very useful thing to cultivate if you want to become able to sit at your desk and make a lot of progress on a project in one sitting.