When I first started meditating, I was so eager to practice.

Everyday. 10 minutes. 20 minutes.

It felt great. I was calmer. More centered. More relaxed. I worried less.

Over time, I started skipping days.

A day. Two days.

And then, “Eh maybe tomorrow.”

And then, “Next week for sure.”

And then, “I have other things I need to do.”

At a certain point, I just gave up meditating completely.

It wasn’t until months later when I came back. This time, I experimented and found that there was really only one thing that ever made a difference in my practice — seeing meditation make a difference in my life.

It meant using meditation to quiet fear or self-doubt. Or it meant recapturing all the time and energy I used to waste worrying about nothing.

Once I was able to see these changes in myself, I started wanting to find more ways to meditate and integrate the practices into my life.

Meditating doesn’t always have to be done at home for 20 minutes a day, morning and night.

Just like how exercise doesn’t always need to be at the gym, you can get free physical exercise during your day by taking the stairs instead of the elevator. Or you can walk to where you need to go instead of taking your car.

We can use similar strategies with meditation.

Just like how we can get free physical exercise by making smart choices during the day, we can take advantage of opportunities that life gives us to meditate.

Where are these opportunities?

These are the situations during the day where you’re already bored. Or situations that you have to be in that you don’t really want to.

Traffic, long lines, jury duty, a social situation, being around difficult people — the list goes on.

You could groan at your situation and make yourself miserable over it. Or you can make the most of the situation and use it to practice meditating. 

You’re already there anyway, AND you don’t want to be there. Why not turn the situation into something useful?

Free practice opportunities

If you’re in a situation you don’t want to be in (like jury duty), you have an opportunity to practice being aware of your thoughts and be present instead.

If you’re waiting in line and you’re starting to get impatient, you can try watching what emotions feel like in your body and level up your emotional-trigger-catching ability that way.

When you think of meditation like this, life opens up all sorts of practice opportunities.

The best part about these situations is that these are things that you have to do anyway. You’re not taking any extra time out of your day AND you get free practice.

Win-win.

Here is a list of places you can use for free practice — the you-needed-to-do-it-anyway situations in your life.

#1 – While waiting (in line, in traffic, for a table)

What do you normally do in line? Pull out your phone? Check Reddit, Facebook, mail, texts, etc?

Try this instead.

The next time you have to wait anywhere (say at a restaurant for a table), instead of pulling out your phone, see if you can bring your attention to your thoughts, just for a moment.

If you notice yourself getting impatient, acknowledge it. You can even say to yourself, “There’s impatience going on in my head.”

If no thoughts come up and your mind is quiet, pay attention to that feeling — this is presence. You can practice staying in this state too.

Wait a minute. I thought meditating was about sitting down and focusing on your breath.

Well, kinda.

Meditation is form of training for focus and awareness (among many other things), and the more you practice, the more you can apply the different practices to your life.

For example, once you start practicing how to watch your thoughts, you’ll start seeing (and reducing) how much time and energy you spend on non-productive thinking, like anxiety, anger, or impatience.

Then, the better you get at watching non-productive thoughts (without getting lost in them), the more likely you’ll be able to shrug them off when they do come up during your day.

Try this today, and if you’re able to catch and refocus yourself out of just one unproductive thinking habit, you’re already winning.

#2 – On any non-active transportation

Subway, bus, train, uber. They all work.

The challenge: Can you be just here in the present moment right now?

Feel the itch to grab your phone.

Notice the thoughts that come up as you’re sitting in your seat.

Bring your attention to the sounds around you or sensations in your body — this is free practice for staying in the present moment.

Why non-active transportation specifically (i.e. not while you’re driving)?

Meditating is an active process. We’re training you to direct your attention towards something (your thoughts).

If you’re focusing on your thoughts or your breath, you’re not focusing on driving.

“But I can text and drive just fine.”

Uh…

#3 – While brushing

In the past, when I brushed mindlessly, there were two things that usually happened:

• I’d rush through it, brushing too hard, sometimes getting impatient and wanting to stop before 2 minutes are up.

OR

• I’d end up thinking about a ton of things that I didn’t realize I was thinking about.

When I started using brushing as a time to notice how often my mind would worry and what it would worry about (unnecessary, exaggerated problems that weren’t actually problems). 

By noticing myself lost in these thoughts, it gave me a chance to play the come-back-to-the-present-moment game.

It’s a 2 minute game, twice a day.

If my toothbrush beeps at the end of 2 minutes and I’m lost in thought, I chuckle to myself and tell myself to play better next time.

If I’m fully present at that moment the 2 minutes is up, I tell myself, “That was pretty good. Do that again next time.”

Free practice.

#4 – While walking (to a meeting, in public, on the way to lunch, in nature)

When you’re walking anywhere, try bringing your attention to any of your senses. Sounds, physical sensations, and thoughts all work fine.

Try staying with whichever sense you pick for as long as you can, and then watch what your mind does to pull you away from it.

“I gotta write this email later. I gotta text my friend later. And then I should figure out that Saturday thing. Oh and then that thing for next week…”

You can get to those tasks later.

For now, see if you can practice being present and catch anything (thoughts, sounds, physical sensations, emotions) that comes up.

#5 – While eating alone

Meditating doesn’t work so well when you’re eating with other people (“Tam…what are you doing? Are you even listening?”), but for the times that you do find yourself eating alone, what do you normally do?

Pull out the phone?

Feel anxious that you’re eating alone?

That was me.

“I wonder what those people think of me eating here alone. Do they think I’m a loser? Maybe I should pretend I’m happy and having fun eating by myself. Quick, look busy.”

Once I realized how busy my mind was in situations like these, I started using them as opportunities to watch my thoughts and come back to the present. A bonus benefit came in being able to pay more attention to and enjoy the meal in front of me.

In Search Inside Yourself, Chade-Meng Tan tells a story about how when he was young, he would get to eat a really expensive meal once in awhile. When those meals happened, he would pay full attention and savor every bite.

His punchline: Why is it that we have to wait for expensive meals to enjoy them? Why not do this with every meal?

He then goes on to explain his “Expensive Food Meditation.” I wrote one involving cookies.

The best part about using meals to meditate is that it you experience foods you don’t like a little differently — the flavors, textures, and smells are just flavors, textures, and smells without the added mental chatter of how bad the meal is or how much better it could be. 

#6 – While doing housework (laundry, dishes, sweeping, making your bed, changing sheets, etc.)

I hate doing house things.

This probably started when I was a kid, where time spent on chores meant time not spent playing games.

Kids…

As adults, we can’t get out of the housework, BUT we can use the situations as opportunities for free practice.

During chores, your mind might wander or become impatient.

“Ugh, there are so many other things I wanna do right now. I hate doing this *grumble grumble*…”

Instead of putting yourself in a crappy mood, try bringing your attention to the thoughts, notice the urge to rush through them or to multitask, notice what the impatience does to your mood and your thoughts, and then refocus your attention back to the chore.

“Joy doesn’t come from what you do but from being present at what you’re doing.”

This is free practice for being here and now.

#7 – While listening to something educational (podcasts, video interviews, trainings)

This one easily gives you 20-30 minutes of extra meditation practice in a day.

1. Play something you want to listen to.
2. Close your eyes, and rest your attention onto your breath. You will listen and hear whether you want to or not.
3. When your attention wanders (it will), notice and acknowledge that you’ve wandered, and then gently bring your attention back to your breath.

#8 – During any moment of fear or anxiety

Fear and anxiety can strike at any time of day, and they can smack you in the face when you’re least expecting it.

When they do strike, bring your attention to 1) where you feel it in your body OR 2) your thoughts. Doing this decreases activity in the fear parts of your brain.

If you’re like me and deal with anxiety often, anxiety is a free opportunity to meditate AND practice for conquering anxiety.

#9 – When you’re about to sleep

We’re used to doing something all the time — all the way up to the moment we sleep — and sometimes, the thoughts keep running even as we’re trying to sleep.

Try this the next time you’re having trouble sleeping and your thoughts are running wild.

1. Bring your attention to your thoughts (mindfulness meditation) OR
2. Bring your attention to all of the physical sensations in your body (body scan) — e.g. where the top of your body comes in contact with the blanket, where the bottom of your bottom comes in contact with the bed, or any sensation in your body.
3. Whenever a thought does come up that’s keeping you awake, use it as free practice to come back to your thoughts or your body.

If you do this “well,” then you get free practice for meditating and being present.

If you do this “poorly,” then thoughts run rampant while you’re falling asleep, which you can use as reminders to come back to your thoughts and body, which is free meditation practice, which quiets thoughts to then make it easier for you to fall asleep.

Win-win!

Bonus opportunity: Anywhere it’s quiet and you have free space and free time

When’s the last time you stopped and relaxed?

If you’re in a quiet space with some free time, take a moment, and do nothing.

Try it right now. Just for a little bit.

Stop what you’re doing, close your eyes, take a slow breath or two, and do nothing.

Go.

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Without a doubt, a thought or two probably popped into your head. But as you practice this more and more, you might find that you enjoy a pause or two during your day — that a break in thinking is worth more than it seems. 

Consider giving yourself more pauses during your day.

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This list is not the only way to meditate with no time. You can make up your own — uncomfortable situations are often best.

When you can catch an old (non-productive) thinking pattern and hold it in your attention without getting lost in it, this is the value of meditation.

If you can notice frustration bubbling in your body before it makes you explode, this is the value of your practice.

It’s these small micro-moments of focus and awareness that build your awareness muscle over time, which then make it easier to respond to life’s challenging (and shitty) moments with composure.

Start by finding free practice opportunities in your day, today.