Try to stop thinking for five minutes, just noticing when you inhale and exhale. How long can you do this before thoughts call you away? Are you thinking about what you need to really be doing right now? Are you remembering something that you wish you had done differently?

Of course it’s impossible to stop our thoughts, and we seem to have little or no control over them. Our minds are rarely still. Most people have thousands of thoughts an hour. The mind doesn’t want to stay concentrated for long. It gets bored. It gets distracted.

For those with attention issues and ADHD, things get even more complicated. Sometimes we don’t know what to do first, or we start one thing and before we’re finished, decide to start something else. We often respond impulsively to whatever thoughts we have.

How do we bring more awareness to what we are doing now, at this moment, despite all the thoughts?

Get an inexpensive watch with a timer. Set the timer for intervals throughout the day, perhaps every few hours. When the timer beeps, stop what you are doing and take a minute to sense your body and your breath. Notice what you are doing, how you are feeling, what is happening within and around you. Decide if you are focusing on what is important for you right now. Thoughts don’t stop us from being present, we just have to learn to see through them.

Every so often, change the frequency of the timer. In this way, you will learn to be more present throughout the day, and you will find that you have more power over what you choose to focus on than your realized.

“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.”
-Alice Walker