Material duties and external activities should be executed with full attention and responsibility, not sloppy - meditation is contained in them

Ramana

 (from "Living by the words of Bhagavan"):

There was another attendant called Rangaswami who also went through a period of inattentiveness. After he had been doing service in the hall for some time he stopped paying attention to his duties and started to meditate instead. He didn't even care about the monkeys. When visitors placed their fruit offerings near Bhagavan the monkeys were able to steal them without any fear of being molested because Rangaswami, the man who was supposed to be guarding the fruit, would be sitting on the floor with his eyes closed.

Bhagavan tolerated this behavior for a few days but he eventually rebuked him by saying, 'If you want to meditate like this, go somewhere else. If you want to live here you must do service like everyone else. Meditation is contained in your service to the Guru.'

Rangaswami realized his mistake and went back to discharging his duties again.