Mindfulness of everyday activities – the informal practice of mindfulness

Our lives are comprised of moments, one after another. For instance, today you may have woken up, turned off your alarm, got up, showered, dried yourself, had breakfast, travelled to work or school/university.

We can engage in each of these moments/activities with a sense of curiosity and engagement, or be on automatic pilot.

We can intentionally bring this attitude to whatever we are doing to help us become more present and awake in every moment of our lives. We can be especially mindful of everyday activities like breathing, travelling and communicating – which we normally tend to do on automatic pilot.

The more we make effort to bring mindfulness to our experiences, the more we will find ourselves spontaneously just ‘dropping into the moment’ without even trying during the day.

Bringing mindfulness to everyday activities

For the next week, pick some everyday activities and experiment with doing them mindfully. Simply bring curiosity to them and engage with them fully. You may like to experiment with a few of them, or you may prefer to pick one each day.

As you do this experiment, notice the effect it has on your day (and night). You may like to share with other learners what you discover. You may also like to include your activity or task as an entry in your mindfulness practice record.

To get you started, Craig and Richard have prepared some suggestions on how you can bring mindfulness to everyday activities which you can access from the Downloads section of this step. We hope you find them useful.