Have you tried the Pomodoro technique? 🍅
Depending on how you work, and your own “focus personality”, it can be an amazing tool to limit the distractions and enhance your focus (so you can finally finish the thing and see results!)
It’s a time management system that alternates between 25 minute work sessions and 5 minute breaks.
The timed intervals are meant to keep you focused by giving you regular breaks that prevent exhaustion and burn out from just working non-stop. It allows you to come back to your work refreshed and sharp after each break, which is way more productive than burn out. 😉
Pomodoro is good for you if:
👉 You’re motivated by deadlines
👉 You go stir crazy without regular breaks
👉 You focus best within short spurts of time (rather than extended periods of time)
👉 You get distracted easily
The pros of Pomodoro:
🍅 The restricted amounts of time train your brain to stay focused on the task at hand.
🍅 It also keeps you focused since you’re allowing yourself to take breaks.
🍅 The consistent interruptions used in Pomodoro make you work faster.
The cons of Pomodoro:
🍅 It can interrupt your flow by forcing you to take a break even when you’re in the middle of outputting some genius work.
🍅 It’s too rigid and structured – not everyone thrives on deadlines.
🍅 The timed work and break sessions are too short. Research has shown that it takes an average of 23 minutes to get into our “deep focus zone” where we’re doing our best work. With Pomodoro, you interrupt yourself with a break just as you’re getting into that zone.
Here’s how to make Pomodoro work for you:
👉 Change the length of the work and/or break sessions.
Make them shorter, make them longer, whatever works for you!
👉 Use a timer.
Don’t just keep looking at the clock (OMG distracting!)
👉 Choose just one task to focus on for each 25 minute work session.
👉 Use the first 25 minute work session to plan.
You don’t have to dive in right away – strategize about the rest of your timed work sessions during the first one.
What are your thoughts on Pomodoro? Yay or nay? 👇👇👇
You know I’m a Pomodoro fan… I love that I learned something new today about deep focus after 23 minutes and your suggestion to use the first timed segment to do some planning. I’m going to give it a whirl!
Good luck Emily, can’t wait to hear how it works for you!
Love the Pomodoro technique, I have this saved to my bookmarks they call it the tomato timer tho haha 🙂 https://www.toptal.com/project-managers/tomato-timer
Haha ya “tomato timer” is a lot more fun and interesting! 😛