Photo by Marco Verch
Experiment: Apply Pomodoro productivity hack Monday-Friday for a month. This involves breaking work time into 25-minute segments focused on a specific task or project, followed by a 5-minute break, and repeating for 3 cycles. This is followed by a longer break (15-30 minutes), and continuing this pattern for the rest of the day (with a longer break for lunch).
Ok, so why…
- I’ve attended a few productivity webinars over the past year, and this is one of the tools the experts most commonly recommend.
- While I have a decent sense of self-discipline, it’s easy to get sidetracked with lower priority tasks and spend too much time reactively replying to email rather than focusing in on the big rocks.
- It’s a good way to eliminate distractions… e.g. news/political clickbait, movie/music info (do I really need to check what year the movie Casablanca came out, the name of an actor in a Netflix show, or Ariana Grande’s current net worth? FYI the latter is estimated at $80-100MM. Get it, gurl.)
- I got so distracted while outlining this experiment that I had to start the practice then, putting on a 25-minute timer to help before the experiment month even started.
- I’ve dabbled with this before and it has helped but I haven’t gone all in and used a timer all day before. Like this experiment, it’s about time.
Uh oh…
- Will this feel draconian, adding a little too much discipline to my day?
- What about when I’m feeling a state of flow when the timer goes off? Will stopping then actually damper my potential productivity or will the 5-minute break be short and refreshing enough that I can keep buzzing at that same level afterward?
About that…
- Where did the Pomodoro technique come from? It was invented by Francesco Cirillo in the 1980s. The name comes from the Italian word for tomato as Cirillo used a tomato-shaped timer.
- I’ve used a few different online timers and I like this one, mainly because the alarm is gentler, less of an SOS, evacuate-the-premises type alarm than some of the others, and it includes multiple cycles in one timer.
I betcha…
- I’m going to like using the clock as an automated accountability buddy but may need to play around to find the optimal amount of time per work session.
- I’m thinking and hoping I can stick with this one going forward.
Do try this “at home”…
- Try this timer out if you’re ready to dive in as it includes 4 x 25-minute cycles.
- If you wanna wet your feet with a single cycle or two first, then try…
- This one if the visual doesn’t matter much to you but you prefer a gentler alarm.
- This one if you want a more neutral looking one for the office and don’t mind a slightly more jarring alarm.
- This bonus option that I’ve just found at the end of my experiment but looks clean, is recommended by Lifehacker, and that I plan to experiment with in the coming week.
- If 25 minutes feels too short for you, you can try using this 52-minute version.
Week 1-2 Notes…
- Focusing on just one thing can be a challenge. I’ve found that while sometimes a more time-consuming task, e.g. building a presentation, will certainly take at least 25 minutes—or a few 25-minute sessions—to work on, sometimes I have a series of smaller tasks, e.g. emails. In these cases, I just work through chunks of smaller tasks till I hit the 25-minute mark.
- I struggle to stop at 25 minutes when I’m in mid-thought or when it makes more sense for me to finish the step I’m working on before breaking. I find myself going to the timer and clicking it back to 5 or 10 minutes remaining to allow me enough time to finish the part I’m working on. (Shh, don’t tell.)
Week 3-4 Notes…
- EpicFail.com! (I didn’t include a link to that site so that you don’t get sucked in.) This has not been working as planned. In addition to being mid-flow at 25mins, I often struggle to find something to do for a break for just 5mins. Time for a mid-experiment tweak… I’m trying a 52/10min approach. Let’s see how this goes…
- It’s been a struggle, but I think I’ve figured this out. I was getting to hung up on sticking to a certain amount of time and forgetting that the real aim of this technique is simply to help you focus on pre-identified tasks for extended chunks of time.
- At the start of a task or day, I just need to identify what I’d like to get done and the amount of time that will best match the task and use the appropriate timer. If I need to add a few minutes to either the work cycle or break, no biggie, as long as it’s keeping me mostly on track.
Whoomp, There It is…
- It’s like meditation in that having a timer running—and maybe some instrumental music—provides a tool to remind you to gently keep bringing your awareness back to the task at hand. Acknowledge the sudden drive to see what movies are currently topping the RottenTomatoes.com critical reviews and let that thought go or at least jot it down to get it out of your mind, and then look it up during a break.
- Merely being conscious of a clock ticking down can help prevent you from reemerging from information rabbit holes like someone emerging from a Vegas casino, wondering what time is it, how long have you been there, and what happened to your shirt?
- It also helps you become better at understanding how long certain tasks actually take you to complete. It’s often longer than we like to admit to ourselves, but the clock don’t lie.
Thanks for reading, and Happy New Year! Please leave me a comment with any feedback and/or what you think my next experiment should be:
- Ketogenic Diet
- CrossFit 2-3x/week
- Daily Affirmations, e.g. writing out by hand a mantra 15x/day
- Guided Breathwork
- Your suggestion?
What will you be experimenting with in January or 2020?