Mindfulness++

I'm one of those guys who always talks about how they hate new year's resolutions and then makes a bunch anyway. Hi, nice to meet you.

One thing that has been weighing on me for a while and especially since I've had kids is that my concentration seems to be a faint shadow of it's former glory. It's probably partly age and partly the induced ADD of having to watch over young children. And don't forget the internets. Damn those tubes!

In any case I find myself so easily distracted, even when I'm doing something that I really enjoy. There seems to be a constantly growing wave of research and advice on this topic and much of it points to meditation/mindfulness as being a practice that will increase your ability to focus. Most recently I read this when going through Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor your Wetware.

I've actually had as a goal for at least a year to do 8 minutes a night of "watching my breath". Sometimes I'll go weeks of doing this every night. Sometimes I go weeks without even thinking about it.

So there are two parts to this resolution. I want to make this a do not skip part of my nightly routine. And I also want to increase the time to 20 minutes. There is probably nothing magic about the number 8 or 20, but I more often see recommended numbers closer to (at least) 20, so that will be my target. So the other part is to increase my time limit by 1 minute a month all of this year. This will bring me ever so slowly and gently to 20 minutes.

So with any luck, by the end of the year laser beams will be coming to me for advice on how to be so focused.

Any long term mindfulness practitioners out there with advice/encouragement?