Spiritual masters like Eckhart Tolle, Mooji and Nisargadatta Maharaj speak very often about the importance of living the present moment being constantly aware of our thoughts while accomplishing our daily tasks. This is a noble practice, but at the same time quite difficult to accomplish, because it is the very nature of the human mind to think, to function continually. Thinking is a sign that the brain functions properly.
However, often compulsive thinking can slow down our daily activities and turn life into a continual search for the future and rewind of the past. Rarely, the human mind focuses on the present and lives in this endless moment without creating imaginary troubles and trying to solve them out. The question is what can we do to be present in everything we do and become the directors of our lives from simple actors of the mind.
First of all we have to embrace the noise of the mind and accept that it is with us since childhood. In this way we turn our attention to the source of the turmoil in our head with the intention of quenching it. That's why we need to know what we're dealing with and where to start.
Fighting thoughts to appease them is like trying to stop a windmill. The harder we fight, the more they become stronger. So the best solution is to observe them as clouds floating in the blue sky without interfering with its tranquility. They will simply come and go if we don't enter their game
Not all thoughts are just a background noise that consumes our energy though. We often have to use our minds to solve certain problems we face in life. In this way the discrimination between logic and fiction is essential and simple to accomplish at the same time. Logic will take us from point A to point B while fiction will keep us going all night without getting anywhere. So if we want to get somewhere we must pay attention to logic rather than imaginary situations with thousands of outcomes.
Focusing our attention on what we are doing now is essential because our whole life is unfolding now, not in the past or in the future. Even if we were cleaning potatoes or flying an airplane, being fully aware of what we are doing, we will give our minds a better target than its favorite sport. It seems strange to focus on cleaning a potato when you know you can do this while recapping your husband's argument with you from yesterday, but it's a practice designed to train your mind to live in the moment regardless of the situation. Small child steps are important.
However, the mind is not as easy to train as it may seem, but with sustained exercise we can become masters of it and our own lives. By directing our attention to what we are doing right now without fighting against the attempts of the mind to lead us into "other scenarios" we will gradually become its masters. That will not happen overnight, but being persistent, patient and determined we will discover that we can now live free from the burden of the past and the future that grinds us daily. If you want anything that's possible you have to do everything that seems impossible.