2 Tips to Help You Enjoy Each Moment

Like my friend Tara, I sometimes have a hard time living in the moment. Not only am I a planner, list maker, and goal maker, I’m a full participant in our fast-paced, multi-tasking world. It’s not uncommon for me to be working on a dozen tasks at once in one form or another. I’m not kidding—more often than not, if our office IT professional (hi Tom!) has to fix something on my computer, he has to first close a dozen windows of various emails and documents just to get started. It’s been a little out of control.

But lately, some synchronistic signs have been telling me that I need to slow down and not just be in the moment, but live it and enjoy it as well. But how do you do that when there are so many things demanding your time and attention? And all at once? Here are two tips you can try today to not just live in the moment but enjoy it too.

1. Try doing just one thing at a time. Enjoying the moment means focusing on it, and that’s difficult to do when you’re doing more than one thing at a time. Try leaving the multitasking madness behind just for an afternoon or evening. Let go of the need to do a few things at once, and focus on each task individually—even relaxing—relishing the moment by focusing on it. You’ll find yourself enjoying even the most mundane tasks, and you’ll find that attention makes the end results all that much better for your efforts. As Todd Henry says, “The greatest efforts in life are done with singular attention.”

2. Shut out thoughts about the future temporarily. Even if your body is only doing one task at a time, that doesn’t mean your mind is cooperating. It’s pretty normal for our thoughts to wander. But to truly enjoy the now, your mind needs to be there as much as your body. How do you keep that mind on the now? According to Richard Moss, when we recognize we’re not in the present, concentrating on what we see, hear and experience in that precise moment will bring us back. This is also the way we can tame our egos and not let them take us out of the present into Worry Land. Once our brains are experiencing the moment, it’s much easier to enjoy it. Try it once or twice today when you catch your mind wandering or concentrating on worries. See if it helps you enjoy the moment more.

I hope these tips help you in your quest to live in and enjoy the moment more. Try them and leave a comment letting us know how it went. Or, if you have other tips to share, please leave a comment and share—we can always use more! (I obviously need to follow these tips because as I sit here typing I’m also watching TV and icing my bum knee. Oh, well, I’m learning too…)