此外，麦肯齐表示，正念并非改变我们的思维方式，也不是“那种我们需要沉溺于其中的事情”。正念是我们已经拥有的，至少会偶然拥有的。目前所有培训的目标，是进一步开发这种技巧，磨练在压力下进行正念冥想的能力。麦肯齐据此提出了四种可以在办公室使用的正念技巧：

    一次完全专注于一件事情。麦肯齐将其称为“完全专注于当前的现实”——即不要执行多项任务，屏蔽脑海中那些喋喋不休告诉你哪些事情没有完成的负面噪音。他说道，完全专注于当前的任务“可以消除无益的干扰，例如‘应该’如何解决一个问题等想法。”抛弃自我施加的限制，例如过去解决问题的方法等，“可以让人们自然而然地以开放的心态接受新的、富有创意的解决方案。”

    转换项目时暂停一下。在心理上陷入一个问题，会干扰人们以新鲜角度看待不同情况的本能。因此，正念要求人们从心理上与之前的活动彻底分离，然后再去专注于下一个活动。站起来走一走，或深呼吸一分钟，都会有所帮助。

    停止担忧。很多时候，人们认为自己在思考问题，实际上只是白费力气。麦肯齐说道：“我们认为，一遍遍地考虑问题就可以解决它。事实却并非如此。”正念训练的目的是教会人们跳出习惯思维模式，按照麦肯齐的说法，“通过创造性意识的自然流动”找出新的方法。

    响应，而不是反应。麦肯齐说道：“死板僵化是创造力的天敌。当我们以为自己知道该做什么的时候，我们便陷入了僵化。”尤其是在我们自以为是的方法并不奏效的时候。而正念则与之相反，它“要人们抛弃‘我们知道最好的、唯一的解决方案’这种想法。”清楚地观察局势，质疑或撇开与之相关的假设，可以打开新的神经通路，产生新奇的想法。

    正念的支持者们认为，通过正念可以提高效率，减少压力，更有可能做出基于现实的决策，而不是基于一厢情愿的想法或恐惧做出决定。或许吧。要想知道正念是否只是流行一时的潮流，唯一的方法是等待，看看人们对它的热情能否持久。麦肯齐的观点明显存在偏见，他认为这种已经存在数千年的潮流必定会存在很长时间，“因为它是有效的”。

    无论如何，你当前的上司似乎认同这种做法，这个理由足以让你接受它。如果正念确实能够在减少焦虑的同时产生更多创意，希望它能一直存在下去。

    反馈：你的雇主是否鼓励“正念”？如果你曾接受过这方面的训练，它对你的工作是否真有帮助？欢迎评论。（财富中文网）

    译者：刘进龙/汪皓

    Moreover, it isn’t a matter of changing the way we think or “something we need to be sold on,” McKenzie notes. “Mindfulness is something we all have already, at least occasionally.” The goal of all the training that’s going on now is to develop more of it and hone the ability to tap into it under pressure. With that in mind, McKenzie suggests these four mindfulness techniques you can use at the office:

    Concentrate completely on one thing at a time. McKenzie calls this being “fully connected to the reality of the moment”—that is, not multitasking, and hushing those nagging, negative little voices in your head that tell you what can’t be done. A total focus on the task at hand “eliminates unhelpful distractions, such as our ideas about a how a problem ‘should’ be solved,” he says. Letting go of self-imposed constraints, like how things have been done in the past, “makes people naturally open to new and creative solutions.”

    Pause between projects. Getting mentally stuck on one problem interferes with humans’ natural ability to see different situations with fresh eyes. So mindfulness requires detaching mentally from one activity before starting to focus on another one. Standing up and walking around, or just deep breathing for a minute, can help.

    Stop worrying. People often believe they are thinking about a problem when they are, in fact, just spinning their wheels. “We think that thinking about a problem again and again and again will solve it,” says McKenzie. “It won’t.” Mindfulness training aims to teach people how to get out of their own way and let what McKenzie calls “our natural flow of creative consciousness” come up with a fresh approach.

    Respond, rather than react. “Rigidity is the opposite of creativity. We become rigid when we think we know what to do,” McKenzie says, especially when it isn’t working. Mindfulness, by contrast, is about “letting go of the belief that we know the best and only way to work something out.” Seeing a situation clearly, and questioning or putting aside assumptions about it, can open up new neural pathways that lead to novel ideas.

    Fans of mindfulness say practicing it makes people more productive, less stressed, and more likely to reach decisions that are based on reality rather than, for instance, on wishful thinking or fear. Maybe so. The only real way to know whether it’s just a fad is to wait and see whether the current wave of enthusiasm for it lasts. McKenzie, whose view is admittedly biased, thinks that a fad that is already thousands of years old will stick around for quite a while longer “because it works.”

    In any case, your current boss seems to agree, which is reason enough to keep an open mind. And if mindfulness really does produce more creativity with less angst, let’s hope it’s here to stay.

    Talkback: Does your employer encourage the practice of “mindfulness”? If you’ve been trained in it, has it helped you in your job? Leave a comment below.