Eat that Frog with a Pomodoro

I was given a task by my teachers at Amal Academy, a renowned academy situated in Lahore, Pakistan for personality and skills development, to experiment the Pomodoro technique and write a blog about my experience. When I first heard the title I was so confused, what does that even mean, especially eating the frog part, but when I took the online course for time management and productivity provided for by the academy, I learned about its origin and the meaning behind it. I will briefly share with you about what I learned in the course.

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. The Frog here refers to the most difficult and worst task so the term Eat that Frog with a Pomodoro means complete your most difficult and time-consuming task with the pomodoro technique.

1. This technique consists of 5 simple steps :

2. Decide on the task to be done.

3. Set the Pomodoro timer (alarm) to 25 minutes

4. Work on the task until the timer rings allowing no distraction and If a distraction pops into your head, write it down, but immediately get back on the task.

5. Take a short 3–5 minute break.

Repeat steps 1–4.

Now the question arises was it difficult to perform or not ?

When I applied this technique, it was quite helpful and not difficult at all rather it became easy to execute the task but allowing no distraction was no easy feat, somehow I managed to reduce the distraction, but I was not able to completely avoid it.

Following are some distractions I faced during the experiment ;

1: Noisy roommates, I was able to reduce it by using head phones.

2: Procrastination, which is something impossible to avoid but pomodoro technique helped me handle it properly.

3: Hunger, I was able reduce it by taking coffee with a biscuit.

4: Exhaustion, I was feeling exhausted in the end but it did not affect me much as I was close to completion.

Other than that the best thing happened to me was productivity, my online courses often took 5 to 6 hours but through this technique I was able to complete it in 2 to 3 hours only and that is quite impressive of me.

There are times when we are stuck on a problem and short on time to complete the assignment, so we jump right into the sea without any prior planning and work hard day and night which is not a wise solution to solve a problem this is something I learned from the course and this experiment. So, I am planning to use this technique regularly to handle my most urgent, important and difficult task. because it will help me in productivity and save my time which is very important because it is something you can never get back.

Charles Darwin once said,

‘’A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life’’.

I will also apply other techniques of time management and productivity to improve the experience like;

Making Weekly and Daily To-Do Lists.

Making The Eisenhower Priority matrix.

Applying 6 P’s i-e “Proper Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance”.

Taking regular and appropriate Sleep.

Thank You.

Regards :

Nabeel Ahmad