Mindful texting?

I was on a social zoom call with a couple of work colleagues the other evening. One of them had to ‘dash off’ to her virtual yoga class.  As we were finishing the call, she said she had been called out by the yoga instructor for looking at her phone during the last class.  She was pretty mortified but then he said - well it’s OK as long as it’s mindful texting.  I have no idea whether it was a joke, but it got me thinking.

Over the past couple of years I’ve run a lot of workshops which have covered the topic of being here in the moment.  In the workshops we typically talk about how difficult it is with all the demands of email, texts, Whatsapp, Twitter etc to stay focussed on the immediate task in hand or to be present with the person/people you are talking to.

In the days of face-to-face meetings it would be pretty obvious who was ‘in the room’ and who was not.  We all knew the signs - head down, phone under the table.  Or the essential laptop ostensibly to ‘take notes’ but more often used to check emails during the meeting.  When we were on webexes with our video cameras switched off, how many of us managed to stay 100% focussed on the meeting? It was hard. 

Few of us are having face-to-face meetings right now so how have we adjusted?  One thing that has probably helped is that we are all equal in meetings now. The days of having a group of people in a room with a few ‘outsiders’ dialled in are gone for the time being. If it’s possible to have video cameras on, there is almost a better sense of presence than mixed medium sessions (some people in a room/a few people dialled in).  Some people have reported feeling they know their colleagues better than before because they have ‘seen’ them in a home context.

So what of mindful texting?

Before Covid, I’m not sure how many people would attend a yoga class and even think about texting during the class. You had probably paid money to attend the class and the very nature of this kind of exercise is to refresh and reset. 

But in the virtual world it has actually become harder to be present in any particular environment because we  have to have a device in front of us to engage with the outside world. With a  laptop, ipad or phone as the vehicle to participate in our targetted activity it could also seem even more tempting to dip into some of the other digital delights in front of us.

I think the yoga instructor must have been making a joke - but the choices for us as individuals about being in the moment are perhaps even harder than they were before.  

If you are interested in hearing more about some of the behavioural aspects of coping with your change agenda please do contact me: [email protected]