Mindfulness is making headlines recently, touted as the secret weapon for people of all walks of life to calm their mind, reduce stress, and get more out of the day. What started as an individual pursuit for inner calm, has expanded to an activity promoted in businesses the world over, with many organisations introducing mindfulness sessions as a company-wide offering to help reduce burn-out amongst staff.
What is mindfulness?
The simplest explanation for mindfulness is to be conscious or aware of something – a state which is harder to achieve than many of us would like to admit. The practice of mindfulness helps people to focus their awareness on the present moment and encourages people to calmly accept and be “mindful” of their thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations.
So why has mindfulness exploded in popularity in recent years?
As the level of information that we’re exposed to increases exponentially from year to year, mindfulness promises to help individuals to stay alert, improve memory and gain an advantage against the competition.
According to Inc.com, mindfulness can help to reduce cortisol levels and thicken grey matter in the brain, which improves one’s ability to handle information – a perk which all of us in the modern age can appreciate.
The popularity of mindfulness can also be credited to high profile business people, such as Marc Benioff, co-founder, and CEO of Salesforce.com, Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn, and Bill Ford of Ford Motor Company.
Smiling Mind making mindfulness accessible to all
Thankfully, if the thought of sitting down to meditate or forming your own mindfulness practice seems too hard, there are a wealth of apps on the market to help. One, in particular, that is seeing great success is an Aussie startup, Smiling Mind.
Smiling Mind is a not-for-profit organisation working to make mindfulness accessible to all. Their free app can be used by individuals, schools, and organisations to effectively teach us to pay attention, reduce stress and manage emotions.
Backed by science, Smiling Mind’s mindfulness app helps users to:
- Reduce physical wear and tear on the body
- Increase the function of the immune system
- Switch off excessive inflammation in the body
- Relieve cardiovascular stress
- Switch down cortisol and damage to the bones
Smiling Mind is trusted by over 40,000 Australian Educators, and has worked with more than 20,000 staff to help transform the culture in more than 200 organisations. To date, they have introduced mindfulness training to over 1.5 million Australian students, and their app is on the phones of over 2.6 million people around the world.
100% free mindfulness
Unlike most productivity tools, Smiling Mind is 100% free and intend to stay this way in order to achieve their mission of making mindfulness accessible to all. Their platform uses state of the art technology, is evidence-based, and acts as a pre-emptive and proactive tool to help support your mental health.
Mindfulness meets todo.vu productivity platform
Here at todo.vu we’re all about productivity, so we see that leveraging mindfulness apps, like Smiling Mind, to boost focus and productivity is as vital as leveraging the best software to help you keep on top of your days.
If you’re like me and like a more logical or scientific explanation of mindfulness, I recommend reading Mindfulness In Plain English. While I’ve not always meditated regularly, I do find, with more knowledge about Mindfulness, that I can look at situations and my reactions to them with more clarity and objectivity.
Running a business is hard, and there is no one ingredient for success. Instead, there is an entire recipe with many ingredients to best prepare yourself and your company for results.
We believe there are 5 steps to establishing a productive business:
#1 Productivity software
todo.vu brings together the many elements of Project Management and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems to focus on tasks. Specifically, getting them done and tracking your activity in order to learn about the productivity of your business.
* You can even set recurring tasks to remind you to keep up your daily mindfulness practice.
#2 Invoicing software
Every business needs invoicing software to make getting paid easier. This is where software like InvoiceBerry can help you to track expenses, create and send quotes, credit notes, and set up recurring invoices through invoice automation.
#3 Accounting software
Accounting, for most people, is a pain. Establishing a good accounting system from the start is the simplest way to keep on top of your accounting so that you can focus on the day to day of your business. Accounting systems, including Xero, Quickbooks, and Wave are designed with functions and features to make Tax reporting and Accounting easier.
#4 Proposal software
Winning business is what’s going to keep you afloat. As design advances and becomes more accessible to us lay-people, clients expect beautiful proposals to capture their attention, just as much as they expect to see a high quality of work. Platforms like Qwilr have re-imagined what pitch decks and PDF’s should look like in the modern age. The result is a platform that enables any business, with any level of design skill, to create communications tools that look elegant and professional.
#5 Mindfulness
We all get overwhelmed from time to time. The best way to proactively mitigate against burn-out is to adopt a mindfulness practice so you can approach your days with a calm and clear mind.
You can download Smiling Mind on the App Store or Google Play.