The Pomodoro Technique
Mitigate Procrastination
Procrastination:
Procrastination is defined as the avoidance of doing a task that needs to be accomplished. Such a simple definition for something that screws you up completely.
It’s been so many times that we think about doing something amazing and just think and think and think…🤔, well that’s procrastination for us. We never know how many goals we would have achieved if we just implemented our ideas rather than thinking about them and delaying endlessly.
That’s where the topic of this blog comes in place The Pomodoro Technique. It is the technique which I find most effective in mitigating procrastination.
The Pomodoro Technique:
The Pomodoro Technique is a time management method developed by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s. The technique uses a timer to break down work into intervals, traditionally 25 minutes in length, separated by short breaks.
This is a well-known technique to actually help one focus on a single task. Let’s summarize it in short.
- Decide on a task you want to do. Not a list of tasks but just one specific task.
- Set a timer for 25 mins and focus on that one task only.
- Any distractions that come in the way, just write them down for later.
- After the 25 mins slot, take a break for 5 mins and repeat the whole process 3 more times.
- Once finished, you can take a longer break or finish up the distractions that came in between or decide to go back to step 1.
Benefits:
Goodbye procrastination: Most people have trouble starting out a task, however, once they are at it they can complete it. This technique helps you get started by assuring you that it’s just 25 minutes of undistracted time that you have to work for, and then it’s up to you to decide further. And once you have got things going up, you are more likely to continue.
High-quality work: As stated in the technique, for the time slot of 25 mins you are not supposed to do anything and just focus on a single thing. This is bound to increase your productivity. Just silent your phones, set up some music (or not, personal preference) and just get work done.
Prerequisites:
Just one here, set up everything you need before the timer. If you want to cook, have your ingredients ready or if you want to work on some project, get your requirements ready. Or if you have trouble doing that, just use the first slot of the Pomodoro technique to set the requirements ready for your task.
The basic idea here is that you don’t waste time setting up things and ultimately delaying them forever.
That’s all folks!
I am an iOS guy and I can recommend an interesting app which can help you convert this technique into a fun game. Forest is an app where you can build your own forest (like cities in SimCity) for the time you stay focused on a task. At the beginning of a session a tree is planted and if you kill the timer or leave the app before the session completes, the tree dies. It’s a fun & addictive way to get started on this technique.
Just go ahead and try out different timings and mix up different techniques with this one to help you get more of out it. Do mention them in the comments section below.
An interesting fact, this article was written using 1 single time slot of Pomodoro.
This story was originally published on LimitHorizon.com.
