Okay. Long time I don't write a post. I've been procrastinating... or not. I've been rather busy with procrastination.other projects, and yes, I've been applying this technique to avoid
Pomodoro is one of the not-so-secret techniques proactive people use to break the procrastination barrier. It was a time management technique created by Francesco Cirillo in the 80's. It takes its name from the word Pomodoro (which is Italian for tomato, and the time it takes to be cooked - 25 minutes)
So what is Pomodoro?
A pomodoro can be roughly described as an uninterrupted period of time you use to focus on a task. But it's mostly targeted to task you don't want to start or find difficult to start with. For example, this little essay you must write for the next week (homework) but don't know how to start, or this lesson you have to study but find so boring and hard...
The recommended period length was, originally, 25 minutes but it's up to you to find the time intervals more suitable to you. The idea behind is you force to focus on a single task during a pomodoro (this will require some effort and willpower on your behalf). Once the pomodoro is finished, take your reward (a piece of chocolate, read that internet blog you wanted, or something you like). Repeat this several times and you will finally find advancing in your task with not so much effort as you first finally thought. You might even not need to do a pomodoro again... for this task.
Originally this was the schedule
- Decide on the task to be done
- Set the pomodoro timer to n minutes (traditionally 25)
- Work on the task until the timer rings; record with an x
- Take a short break (3–5 minutes)
- After four pomodori, take a longer break (15–30 minutes)
Applications
There are many applications there (just google for them), even free, so I won't post them here. The one I'm currently using is Pomodoro One, for Mac OS X, which is free, but has some premium paid features. Even the free version is good enough.
To Do
- Use Pomodoro One or other app
- Start with 25 minutes pomodoro time intervals and see the results
- Take a reward once I finish a pomodoro.
- Concentrate in the process (finish a pomodoro) not the product (finish the task)
Sources
- Wikipedia
- Lifehacker - Productivity 101 - A primer to the Pomodoro Technique
- The Pomodoro Technique - Is it Right for you?
