When listening is hard

Sometimes I'm at a meeting and it's hard for me to listen to whoever is speaking.  This is especially true if I have a big deadline.  It's not the speaker's fault.  The problem is that I'm at work, focused on my goals, and they're talking about something else.  I can't wait to get to back to the tasks that will move me toward my goals.

It happened this morning.  The speaker was a friend.  He's smart.  He was describing the strategy of his organization.  It was an impressive strategy, and he was describing it eloquently.  But still, I could hardly make myself listen.  It just wasn't something that was directly moving me closer to my challenging goals.  When I feel as if my goals leave no room for error, and no time to spare, then I can't easily focus on what someone else has to say on some other subject, even if that person is my friend and what he's saying makes sense.

So what to do?  One thing that often works for me is to focus on my breathing.  I'm there in the meeting, tuning into my inhalations and exhalations, and suddenly I'm making eye contact with the speaker.  I'm taking it all in.  I catch their eye and I can tell they notice and appreciate my attention.  The more I focus on my breath, the more I focus on their words, as if my lungs are connected to my ears.

Why does this seem to work for me?  I think, given my practice of meditation, when I pay attention to my breathing I remember to tune into the present moment.  In this moment, in this meeting, I'm not going to move any closer to my top work goals.  So in this moment, I can forget about those goals and listen closely to my friend.