Mindfulness and Pomodoro technique question

Question

The idea of being focused on what I'm doing right now from Pomodoro technique. And the idea of mindfulness from Buddhism looks very similar to me.
1.Can mindfulness training from Buddhism helps to be more organized and productive ?
2.What is the best way/book and easiest way to start practicing and training mindfulness ?

Answer 1

So first off - I think the best answer is to get the book 'Zen to done' . Other good books generally about meditation include 'teach us to sit still'

And it's also an interesting question - let's break it down a little bit.

First of all I think it's important to separate out the Buddhism bit - the way mindfulness is generally understood in the west doesn't related that well to the way it's rooted (In exactly the same way that the food served in my local Indian restaurant is unrecognisable to my Indian neighbour)

So just thinking about mindfulness (ironic, eh?) I think the answer is that it certainly wouldn't make you less productive (For example If I meditate for ten minutes I'm less likely to be distracted by trivial things for the next little while - so that's more productive) but the two are effectively different frames of reference.

If you are being mindful about your life you are taking a particular paradigm of viewing the world - if you are a trying to be more productive - you may well be taking a different one (breaking stuff into projects, tasks, ect all the time)

Final word is that people who are more mindful probably get more done - that's more or less the point of http://zenhabits.net/ (and Leo writes some good stuff over there) but I suspect that there more a correlation than a causation. I.e - people who have the discipline, and clarity of thought to be really productive, are also the same people who have the discipline and clarity of thought to get a lot out of mindfulness and meditation.