Anna-Marie Jaeschke & Macaela Mackenzie

Lately, I’ve seen a lot of articles along the lines of “Mindfulness without meditation!” or “How to be mindful in just 30 seconds!” or “Mindful binge-watching!”

OK, I made up that last one, but you get the idea. People want the calming, stress-busting benefits of mindfulness, but they don’t want to spend the time to get those benefits.

I get it. We all lead busy lives. While I do encourage setting time aside for traditional meditation—honestly, it’s changed my life—I know it can be hard for many.

Luckily, small amounts of informal mindfulness practice can bring real benefits. The Tibetan meditation masters like to say, “Short sessions, many times,” and I support that approach. After all, that “How to be mindful in 30 seconds” article I mentioned? I wrote it.

Here’s an easy way you can bring mindfulness into your life without carving time out of your day: Take activities you already do and learn to do them mindfully.

In the video below, I share a few simple ways to do that. These practices are great on their own, but my hope is that they’ll show you, and your students as well, how good mindfulness can feel, and inspire you and them to set aside a little time for traditional meditation.