May Favorites
Quote:
Productivity Tool:
If you are human, one of the things that can hinder your productivity is procrastination. To battle this, I like to use the pomodoro technique. You may have already heard of this but, essentially, the pomodoro technique uses a kitchen timer set to 25 minutes during which time you work/study and then take a five minute break. More on this technique can be found here: http://pomodorotechnique.com/
I have used the pomodoro technique for several years now. But this past month, I varied this technique to achieve a greater motivation to start working on my projects and not only that but to continue working for a longer period of time than the usual 25 minutes. Because, ideally, we want to work in a state of ‘Flow.’ Flow, is defined by Mihaly Cziksentmihalyi as “a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience is so enjoyable that people will continue to do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.”
Here’s what I did: These techniques I find are best described by different types of sandwiches. Because, why not?
The sandwiches:
- Tomato sandwich
Here you will do the following:
- Leisure activity with pomodoro timer
- Work/ study with pomodoro timer
- Leisure activity with pomodoro timer
This technique is best for when you are really not motivated to start working. You will pick any leisure activity that you like to do and do that for 25 minutes. Then, you get your work/studying done for the next 25 minutes. Follow this with another leisure activity for another 25 minutes. Starting off and ending off with a leisure activity of your choice motivates you to get started and not procrastinate.
- Club sandwich
- Leisure activity with pomodoro timer
- Work/ study with pomodoro timer
- Leisure activity with pomodoro timer
- Leisure activity with pomodoro timer
- Work/ study with pomodoro timer
- Leisure activity with pomodoro timer
For this technique we are essentially repeating the “tomato sandwich” technique over and over.
The next sanwich:
- Montreal sandwich
- Leisure activity with pomodoro timer
- Work/ study with flow timer (stopwatch timer)
- Leisure activity with pomodoro timer
With the “Montreal sandwich” technique you can continue you to work in a state of flow. The meat of the sandwich represents the period of flow. During the flow technique you will set a stopwatch timer instead of the usual countdown timer.
Those were the variations of the pomodoro technique that I have employed last month and the results were more motivation and a longer duration of working.