Noting, shooting and videogames... (or how do I note?)

Meekan, I would do the 4f's exactly as you describe at the beginning of every sitting and I found it really helpful getting some momentum and sorting out what's going on on how the different parts of experience interact and things like that.

I still do it quite often to get my bearings. Nothing wrong with it. Doing what you are doing is a good practice for getting comfortable with noting, developing some labels you find useful and easy to work with, and also sorting out what is what in your experience. If you do what you are describing exactly as you are describing you will make progress and as you do so you can modify your technique. Once you do what you're doing and get a feel for it, you can just note what's coming up, but that'll just come on it's own as you gain confidence.

This is from my journal (entry 5) (sound familiar?)

"Noticed the pleasant feelings begin to weaken and a lot of thoughts about my practice began to arise. Returned to 4 foundations type practice. Noted the physical feelings I had just gone through. Less things stood out from before, switched to noting the feeling tone associated with each physical sensation. Noted any emotions --> feelings of Joy / slight anxiety. Noted thoughts, noticed an immediate shift. Things became easier to note, overall feeling opened up, became lighter. Stopped being embedded in thinking, noted any further thoughts."

P.S.
Make sure to use labels such as "practice thought, dharma thought, doubting thought, etc." if you find you are often running into doubts about your practice and whether you are doing it right. If you catch those thoughts and note them at that level, you are definitely doing it right.

Hi Meekan,

There are at least two ways to do this. One is to go through the Four Foundations of Mindfulness one at a time, noting only what you find at that level and not paying much attention to other things. When you are noting physical sensations, for example, you scan the body to find what is predominant, but if you notice a mind state or a thought, you don't note it. This is a good exercise to really get clear on what the foundations are.

Another way is to "put it all back together" and note whatever comes up while keeping an eye out to see that none of the four foundations are being overlooked.

You should practice both. Taking the foundations one at a time really strengthens your fundamentals. It's like a piano player practicing scales. And when you put it all back together and just note whatever comes up, you are like a musician who is just cutting loose and playing freely, improvising on whatever theme comes up.

edit: I see that Mumuwu was posting at the same time I was. Thanks, Mumuwu, these are great suggestions.

Ahh! Thanks again for taking your time, mumuwu and kenneth!
Really helpful!