[duncanawoods]

I believe meditation has taken too much oxygen from intellectual action e.g. writing exercises where you try to fully describe what is happening, the feelings, the causes, consequences and possible actions.

If you do this, you gain insight, empowerment and actionable plans. Meditation might claim something similar but I don’t think it delivers to the same degree.

[BiteCode_dev]

Self-development in general is a very efficent excuse to avoid taking action.

You can certainly use "meditation" to work on yourself forever, in preparation for doing things, and never, ever, actually do anything.

But in itself, it's not the nature of meditation.

In a way, meditation share similarities with physical exercice.

Doing your morning run doesn't make you less fit to take action, make a plan or to apply critical thinking. I would say it's the opposite.

A lot of my most productive periods in my life are right after meditation retreats.

During those times, I use GTD a lot, to support my efforts. Writting, descripting, listing causes and consequences are in no way in competition with meditation.

To be frank, I don't know what could be in competition with meditation. It's pretty much orthogonal to everything by essence.

[alecbenzer]

IME it does deliver. Not necessarily directly (like, you're not going to come up with an action plan white meditating), but, over time, it helps cultivate a state of mind where those things are easier to do.

I think it does take time, though, like between 1 week and 1 month of daily practice, to start noticing the effects.

[mercer]

I agree, but I'll add that in my opinion a writing exercise such as OP describes is half-way meditation anyways.

different activities involve different degrees of mindfulness, and I believe making a sharp distinction, while sometimes useful, is usually harmful.

You can take a shit mindfully, way I see it. it might not be something you call 'meditation' most of the time, but I imagine it's even possible to do a proper meditative shit.