Pomodoro Technique

Anyone familiar with the 'Pomodoro Technique'?

It's a productivity/time management method where you break your time down into intervals of 25 minutes (i.e. 'pomodoro's'), separated by breaks of 5 minutes.

During the interval of 25 minutes, you focus on one task or kind of work. This is the important part: you take one thing you want to work on (e.g. study for a certain course) and you channelize all your focus on that task during the interval.

You can't take a break (like looking at your phone or surfing to a news site) during the pomodoro. The time interval is dedicated to one thing only.

There are 6 steps of the original technique (as in Wikipedia):

1. Decide on the task to be done.
2. Set the pomodoro timer (traditionally to 25 minutes).
3. Work on the task.
4. End work when the timer rings and put a checkmark on a piece of paper.
5. If you have fewer than four checkmarks, take a short break (3–5 minutes) and then return to step 2; otherwise continue to step 6.
6. After four pomodoros, take a longer break (15–30 minutes), reset your checkmark count to zero, then go to step 1.

The inventor of this technique argues that the optimal duration of concentration is 25 minutes. It's better to be concentrated and work on a task for 25 minutes than to do it half-assed for a few hours where you check your phone every few minutes.

So with this thread I'd like to establish a new 'challenge'. I find myself procrastinating a lot. The Pomodoro Technique is a good way to combat procrastination and improve your productivity, thus getting more out of life.

I will keep myself accountable by posting how many pomodoro's I did every day. In my case, the pomodoro's will be mainly dedicated to:

- studying/rehearsing classes
- reading books
- following recorded lectures (that I can pause)

Feel free to embark the journey by posting the amount of pomodoro's you did!

 

Day 1: 4 pomodoro's

I followed 1 online recorded lecture today. Thought it wasn't bad to break it down into chunks of manageable intervals to keep the concentration optimal (also to avoid long periods of sitting).

Yes, this thread is to keep each other accountable by sharing how many pomodoro's we did everyday.

Good luck.

 

Day 2: 6 pomodoro's

One pomodoro was dedicated to structuring my agenda and making some to do lists, thinking about things I need to do (you could call this meta-productivity).

The other 5 pomodoro's consisted off following online lectures (it now takes more time to finish lectures but at it's a bit easier to digest). The pomodoro's concerning the lecture were 30 mins though.

 

Appreciate the tips.

I'm using something similar as your habit tracker (basically the same concept): dontbreakthechain

It's a site with a simple calendar template where you can add 'chains', i.e. habits you want to implement in your life (e.g. studying a language for 1 hour). Everyday you do the habit you 'stamp' the day in order to make a long chain of days where you have done the habit (it displays your streak). The goal is to make long chains of habits you want to implement and you will be compelled not to break them (the point is that habits get ingrained in your life if you do it everyday). This works of course too with abstaining from bad habits (adding a NoFap chain for example).

 

Day 3: 2 pomodoro's

They were dedicated to sending resumes to firms for an internship. Could have get more done today though

 

Day 1: 6 pomodoro's
Day 2: 8 pomodoro's

Maybe I'll do another pomodoro or two after this. I'm not going to use the pomodoro technique every time I'm going to study/read but I feel that it's a good method that compels me to study. Having the obligation to do nothing else but focus on a task for temporary interval is very useful because otherwise my studying would be directionless, i.e. checking YouTube after 5 minutes of 'studying' and then falling in a negative spiral of procrastination.

Would recommend!

 

Day 3: 7 pomodoro's

My concentration wasn't optimal during the last pomodoro's, but what's important is that you are determined to focus on that one task/reading during the 25 minutes. I had to discard some pomodoro's I started but didn't finish because I got distracted or my concentration was suddenly gone.

I added another pomodoro to yesterday's log. I will probably do another this evening.

 

Day 4: 12 pomodoro's

 

Yes, that's a constituent part of the pomodoro technique. The specificity of the task at hand is what makes it effective.

 

Day 5: 12 pomodoro's

Thanks for the tip ^

I'm now just keeping using a timer on a smartphone I exclusively use that purpose. I count the pomodoro's with tally marks.

I will do some more pomodoro's today. If I started doing this a few weeks earlier (combining it with digital fasting) then I wouldn't have been in such a time crunch for my exams. Oh well!