Supercharge your Pomodoro, Animedoro, MangaDoro, GamingDoro, SeriesDoro đź‘€
Wait, I heard about Pomodoro but what is Animedoro, MangaDoro, GamingDoro, SeriesDoro? — Random guy on the internet
For the uninitiated, go take the stairs to the top. There are no shortcuts. Read more in the previous article. We will digging into small changes which can add rocket 🚀 fuel to our Pomodoro practice.
Here be distractions
When you start the practice of meditation, mind starts drifting to myriad thoughts.
“That chocolate bar in the freeze”
“Shit! I forgot to do my taxes”
“What to plan for her birthday?”
“That pesky project deadline”
When you are meditating, you only want to declutter your mind and yet they keep visiting you.
When you are in practice people will tell you this is bound to happen. You need to accept them and choose not to interact with them. Generally we go back to focusing on the breath or the guiding voice or the object of focus.
How can we bring this knowledge in our practice of Pomodoro. Keep a diary or a page. Whenever something distracting pops up. Write it down and continue.When you write it down somewhere brain can let it go. End of the day our brain trusts the paper more than us. This is effective even without the pomodoro mode. Acknowledgment is the key.
Bigger is better
Typical pomodoro cycle is 25 minutes. Why stop at 25 min? Once you start hitting the time barrier consistently, it becomes a bit of nuisance to take break mid flow. Everything is going as you wanted and suddenly the clock chimes in. It is a good indicator that we need to move up the ladder. Ultimately our aim is to take breaks in the lows recharge and hit goals again.
Keep increasing the time frame go from 25 to 30 to 45 to 60 heck even 90. Deep work book suggests we can even try 90 minute deep work sessions followed by a break.
Grind through it
“I thought I’d solved a problem when really I was creating new ones by taking the path of least resistance.”
― David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds
The urge to break the flow is high, the urge to check phone is high, urge to go down some internet rabbit hole is high. First let’s get rid of all the tabs. Only keep the minimum tabs required. Turn phone notifications off, heck get the phone away from work place. Make it difficult. Rules like
“No tik tok on work mode”
“Bonus play time for completing this session”
And above all these small nifty mind hacks, embrace the grind. Even when you are not willing to sit through it, sit through it. It is the training you need to provide to your mind. When the sun is shining anyone can keep on going. Going gets tough when it is grim and that is where the real challenge lies. Discipline is the key.
1 + 1 = 11
Thinking in Pomodoros. First, get that cup of coffee and a notepad. Nothing matches the old pen and paper combo. Start with major tasks and then break tasks in subtask. Now let’s Estimate these tasks and subtask.
“Task Y will take X Pomodoros.”
And then jump into action, finish Pomodoros and then tick away on the task list. You will be surprised at the results. This article took me 3 Pomodoros to complete. My target was 2 but it went overboard. Estimation is an art in itself. Deadlines help, procrastination is second nature and keeping a deadline really adds the needed boost.
“Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion” — Parkinson’s law
Long live the kingdom of Pomodoro.
Do drop a line if it helped.
