Brian Richmond, PhD, has spent his career at the forefront of people data and analytics. After establishing a people analytics team as a senior data scientist at WeWork, Brian Richmond founded the product intelligence department at Aura Health, a technology firm that develops mobile applications to support meditation, mindfulness, and well-being.

1. Brian Richmond
Improving
Productivity
with
Mindfulness

2. Introduction
 Brian Richmond, PhD, has spent his career at the forefront of people data and
analytics. After establishing a people analytics team as a senior data scientist at
WeWork, Brian Richmond founded the product intelligence department at Aura
Health, a technology firm that develops mobile applications to support meditation,
mindfulness, and well-being.
Mindfulness is the practice of focusing on immediate thoughts and physical
sensations to remain in the present moment. This awareness counters the natural
inclination to waste mental energy contemplating the past or the future.
Through consistent mindfulness, people can become aware of their distracting
thoughts and refocus their attention. Mindfulness has been shown to positively
affect productivity by reducing distractions and lowering stress.
In the workplace, employees can apply mindfulness techniques to their workloads.
For example, rather than shifting between several tasks, someone taking a mindful
approach would schedule blocks of time without meetings, and work on only one
task at a time. Other strategies include taking the right kind of breaks throughout
the day, and disconnecting from social media and email for periods of focus time.
This keeps attention on the task at hand, resulting in higher productivity.