

Give Yourself Time To Think - doriandargan
http://doriandargan.com/post/48045171058/give-yourself-time-to-think

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tannerc
It took me five years of regular meditation to really grasp the power of
knowing not only what, but how, you think in certain situations.

It's easy to run on autopilot, but doing so often leads to temporary emotions
fueled by passing events taking charge of your actions.

Five minutes a day can make a huge difference. It's not easy, but it's always
worth it.

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geekam
I have never understood what does the exercise involve? Can you please tell me
what is it that you "do" in those five minutes that you meditate? I want to
try this. Thanks.

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gnaffle
There are many ways to do meditation (and many goals) but generally in silent
meditation you pay attention to what your mind is doing, how you are feeling
emotionally and physically, etc. To have a "reference point" you can pay
attention to your breath.

<http://www.audiodharma.org/series/1/talk/1762/> is a good, free introduction
(this is from a Buddhist center, but the podcast applies to mindfulness in
general).

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Paul_D_Santana
I would add that you should also allow yourself to get "bored" as that is
often what leads to creativity and other breakthroughs.

My last blog post was actually the result of exactly that, when ironically, I
had finished reading all of the posts that interested me on the front page of
Hacker News.

~~~
doriandargan
Yeah for sure. Allowing yourself to be "bored" lets your mind escape the
patterns it's too often stuck in.

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karuneshkaushal
It is nice that you wrote about it.

Unknowingly, I used to think for a few hours (1-3 mostly) daily until I was in
college. Never noticed it. But after I got into my first job in 2011, I
started missing this time because of 10-11 hours of work and 1 hour drive both
ways.

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drorweiss
Agree - it's very important to have idle time and let you mind run free,
without solving any immediate problem.

For me, the best ideas come during long showers, when starting to fall asleep,
and when waking up.

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thrush
This is why lucid dreaming would be awesome. You'll always have time to think
when you're asleep!

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doriandargan
That would be pretty awesome. Like an extended meditative & peaceful trance.

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contingencies
This is a contributing factor to the numerous reasons why rigid office
schedules are counter-productive for technical/creative staff. (Some others at
random: reduced performance without adequate sleep/food, wasted transit time,
need to maintain work/life balance through outside interests that may counter
to fixed schedules, periods required to resolve wayward body clocks after
flights/parties, etc.)

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lifeisstillgood
Utterly agree.

I would go further - thinking, experimenting (trying different approaches with
metrics to say, number of concurrent connections supported) and then building
one to throw away, lead to better overall results.

