"The point, however, is that as a consequence of noticing when our mind has wandered and then replacing our attention on the breath 10,00 or 100,000 times, we are subtly strengthening our awareness of what is happening in our mind and, so, our ability to take control of where we focus our concentration."
So true. But mindfulness doesn't need to be obtained/focused solely by focusing on your breath. I think you can gain a lot of mindfulness strength by training yourself how to (actually) focus on your work: http://focusr.co
Employers have more information about salaries than employees. This information asymmetry can be problematic for employees who aren't savy enough (or have the time enough..) to find out what a fair-market salary is for their position. I'm NOT suggesting this is a legislation-level problem, but just pointing out a frustration that has been voiced by many of my developer friends (in NYC in particular).
Instead of focusing on your (i.e.) your breath, you can practice bringing your focus back to your current task. Whenever you open a new tab, it shows your current task in huge letters to prevent you from going on a downward spiral (coughhackernewscough :) before it starts.
Mindfulness for your work: http://focusr.co/ (i.e., instead of being mindful to your breath or some aspect of your environment, you can practice mindfulness by bringing your attention back to your current task).
This is especially useful because it prevents downward spirals from happening before they begin. For example, if you want to work on X, you can write "Do X" in this extension. Then, when you open a new tab to do something non-productive (like browsing reddit, etc), you'll see a huge reminder of "Do X" to prevent goofing off before it even happens.
I think flow is the more the state achieved, whereas mindfulness is learning to notice when flow is not achieved, or is achieved for the wrong thing.
For example, I can be in flow while coding, but if things get too frustrating I may drop out of flow. Mindfulness for me is noticing quickly that I am frustrated. If I don't, I may end up in flow while reading Hacker News; being mindful helps me recognize that state rather than getting caught in it until noprocrast boots me.
I was diagnosed with ADHD as a child. That is partially why I created this webapp: http://focusr.co/. It helps you focus on one thing at a time, which can be hard enough for people even w/o this diagnosis.
A tool to help combat distractions like Twitter* and focus on one thing at a time: http://focusr.co.
*Although I'm pleased with Twitter's self-awareness here, and I'm not saying there's anything intrinsically wrong with services like these. You just aren't going to see many successful entrepreneurs wasting their time on these services (unless they're directly responsible for engaging users through it).
So true. But mindfulness doesn't need to be obtained/focused solely by focusing on your breath. I think you can gain a lot of mindfulness strength by training yourself how to (actually) focus on your work: http://focusr.co