Zen Habits for Small Business Owners – Why is it Important?

Zen is associated with calm, serene Buddhist meditation and the word Zen itself means meditation. You may query what has a Buddhist philosophy got to do with small business owners?

A small business owner has to multitask and is often a harried person. A tense person cannot concentrate and his work will suffer.

This is where Zen comes in. If you cultivate the Zen Habits, made popular by Leo Babuta, author of the popular Zen Habits blog, you learn control, have an equable frame of mind and with enhanced concentration can complete your work.

Practical application of Zen Habits

Leo Babuta advocates three principles. One prioritize tasks, second keep your mail box empty and third – learn to single task or do one thing at a time.

None of this is going to work out you may think, quite true. But applying the broad principles of Zen Habits will definitely benefit you.

1. Prioritizing

Have a goal and everyday get up and do something to get closer to your goal. You have prioritized your work, time and goals. When you make it a daily routine you achieve your goal quickly and efficiently. Chris Guillebeau author of the Non-Conformity Blog advises that you use your daily morning exercise when your mind is fresh to create new products or innovations, improve customer relations, think how to attract more business etc.

2. Single Tasking

Multi tasking is the mantra of every small business owner. Recent studies at Harvard indicate that single tasking is more efficient for obviously you are channeling all your concentration to the task in hand.

Humans’ by nature are multi taskers. What you can do with Zen habits is to improve your concentration and cognitive abilities, so that you can complete one task properly in the minimum time. For example if you are doing 3 things at a time within 15 minutes, with single tasking finish within 10 minutes with better results. Result – Improved efficiency.

3. Emptying Your Mailbox

No one is asking you to delete all your mail. What it means is get rid of trivial mail without wasting time. Do not start the day reading your mail. But my email is important for your business. In practice prioritize your mail reading also. Most of us are addicted to our Inbox, checking endlessly wasting precious time which could be used more productively.

The principle of enhancing concentration through meditation advocated by Zen Habits is basically Old Wine in a new bottle. But then when it improves not only you but also your business why not utilize it Old is Gold.

[Image Source: liveboldandbloom]

Republished with Permission from Everything Small Business Journal – http://esbjournal.com.