Harvard Business Review Emotional Intelligence Collection (4 Books) (HBR Emotional Intelligence Series)

8

Is Something Lost When We Use Mindfulness as a Productivity Tool?

By Charlotte Lieberman

I came to mindfulness as a healing practice after overcoming an addiction to the drug Adderall during my junior year of college. I found myself in this situation because I thought that using Adderall to help me focus was no big deal—an attitude shared by 81% of students nationwide.¹

Adderall simply seemed like an innocuous shortcut to getting things done efficiently and effortlessly. I still remember the rush I felt my first night on Adderall: I completed every page of assigned Faulkner reading (not easy), started and finished a paper several weeks before the due date (because why not?), Swiffered my room (twice), and answered all of my unread emails (even ...