WHY YSK- Many people practice mindfulness and meditation as part of their lives, and some would like to but feel like they don’t have time to sit down and meditate properly. Once you’ve gotten used to doing it as a part of your daily activities, it becomes easy to simply take a few breaths and gain some peace from your everyday existence. You don’t need to wait for a time when you can sit and clear your mind completely. It’s a nice bonus, but not necessary for living a mindful life.
Personally, if I’m doing something that I find monotonous, I just focus on my breath and my body. You don’t have to find joy in the one thing you’re doing to meditate while doing it. You can shift the joy to just your breath and your body being a gift to you because you woke up today.
If I feel the need, I also allow my mind to do whatever it feels the need to for a little bit, which is usually planning for something that makes me anxious or thinking about something that happened earlier, then bring my thoughts back to just my breath and my body for a few seconds, and refocus on the thoughts that crept in. It’s okay to allow whatever thoughts want to creep up in, and then accept and acknowledge what you want to think about and why.
You can continue doing the dishes and meditate while allowing your mind to focus on the thoughts that wanted to creep in. You don’t have to block it all out. Just acknowledge it and make it part of the experience. Once you’ve acknowledged the other thoughts, you may find you can mix the two together–I’m anxious about this thing coming up, but I also appreciate the warm water running over my hands right now.