Turning Thoughts Off

Is it possible to turn your hopes off while you work?

I'm always pulled two ways when I work:  on one way, I try to focus on what it is that I'm doing.  On the other, I'm trying to focus on what I want to do.  Unfortunately, the two are seldom the same thing.

At one time I had the ability to focus on exactly what I was doing.  In particular, I picture working at the convenience store my cousin owned.  Every night, it was my job to fill the walk in.  Every night, that's exactly what I did:  opening each door to face the beers and sodas, then going in back and loading the beers and sodas into the rows, bundled up in a sweat shirt as I did it.  I had it down to an art - approximately 1.5 hours to do the whole cooler, clean up, and get ready to close.

Did I ever spend time thinking about doing something else?  Possibly.  But I knew my routine and I executed it every night. I was there, working away, being where I was.

That feeling of being where I am seems strangely gone from my life at this point.  Even when I am at work, it feels like I have forty things there pulling at my attention, begging to be completed.   I try and focus, and sometimes I'm even successful at keeping my attenion on one project - but when it's over, I am only suddenly reminded of all the other things I have to do.

This, of course, do not play on anything that I want to do.  This is another area that my brain happily runs off pursuing, leaving me to try to wrangle my day with what's left.

How do I do it?  How do I completely "be" where I am, even if it entails a constant struggle to accomplish things that seemingly have no meaning?