How to feel being in the moment

'Be in the moment', 'live for the now', 'ride the wave' — yeah, sounds great, easy to say (not like we're hauling bricks here). But how exactly do you do it? Here's a method that works. I developed it specifically for this purpose, and I've been using it for years.

It works best as part of a larger toolkit for managing your life, but it's perfectly fine to use on its own. It sharpens your sense of the here and now, intensifies your feelings, and helps you focus on your surroundings, sensations, and emotions.

The method is called 'Memories of present'. Here's how it works:

Stop now and then — wherever you are, whatever you're doing. You can set reminders or go with your gut. The key is to make it spontaneous, to catch yourself in the middle of a situation: walking down the street, cleaning the house, hanging out with friends.

Immediately start writing down what's happening right now — as if it's already in the past. Pretend you're describing a scene from a book or movie, or an excerpt from your memoirs. Write down everything: the current situation, your feelings, emotions, the behavior of the people around you, sounds, smells. Use only the past tense and describe everything as if it's already happened:

I was standing by the weathered wall of Brewdog bar, rolling a cigarette between my fingers. The noisy group next to me had disappeared inside, leaving behind a cloud of vape smoke that smelled sickly sweet and spicy, like melon and cinnamon or some such nonsense. I stared up at the night sky and the blinding streetlights and felt this enormous, airy, pleasantly weightless emptiness in my chest. It was as if cool sea air was rushing through it from below. I lit up and paced back and forth, working out a plan (...)

It doesn't matter if you're good at writing — the literary value of what you produce isn't important here. The point is to capture the moment while you're in it. How you do it stylistically is irrelevant.

As you write it all down, tune into your sensations. Feel how each moment, each second of the present, melts into the past as you write. Notice, too, how the future doesn't exist yet — it arrives instantaneously (and becomes the present) as each previous moment locks into history. Let these sensations take over, soak them in, and enjoy them.