The Pomodoro Technique: What It Is & How To Use It
Have you ever given yourself too much time for something? I know it sounds strange. Most of the time, we’re thinking about how to get more from our time or just wishing there was more of it.
When I first started time blocking, I heard about creating theme days. This is when you dedicate a big chunk of your day (or all of your workday) to one category of your business, like a content creation day. Theme days are amazing. They help you focus your brain in one specific area and easily batch your tasks. That way, you can knock out ALL of your social media posts or ALL of your blog posts at the same time.
Check out Time Blocking 101: 4 Steps to Get You Started
What an amazing idea...except when you forget to create urgency for yourself. My first content day was a total disaster. I wasted half my day not feeling inspired, and in the end, didn’t make much progress with my content. I allowed myself to procrastinate (an old habit of mine) and get distracted by cleaning, social media scrolling, etc. What a waste of time.
The Pomodoro Technique
Since then, I’ve become a huge fan of the Pomodoro Technique. The Pomodoro Technique was created by Italian Francesco Cirillo back in the 1980s. Pomodoro actually means tomato in Italian. He named his technique this because his kitchen timer was shaped like a tomato. Fun, right?
The genius of this technique is that it takes a large time block and breaks it down into 25-minute, focused work segments. It helps you stay on task and move with a sense of urgency. You can set specific tasks for each segment in order to create smaller goals and deadlines instead of just approaching the whole day with one massive objective, which--for me at least--causes a bit of overwhelm and paralysis.
In between each 25-minute segment, you take a 5 minute break. As I’ve talked about before (see 5 Tips for Staying Focused & Productive), in order to stay focused, our brains and our bodies need frequent breaks. If we don’t consciously take a break, our bodies will do it for us in the form of fatigue and distraction.
After about four Pomodoro segments (2 hours), you take a longer break for 15-20 minutes. Then, begin again.
Genius, right? This is now the technique I use not only for myself in my daily time blocks, but I also use it in my virtual Co-Working Membership.
How to Use the Pomodoro Technique
So, how do you go from, say, a “content day” to full-on Pomodoro effectiveness? Here are some steps for you:
Identify your most important tasks. These should be your money drivers--things that will lead directly to being paid or tasks that need to be done as a result of already being paid--and your things with impending deadlines.
Look at your block of time. Do you have 25 minutes or 2.5 hours? Will it fit within the time frame you have? If it’s a bit of a stretch, that’s okay. You will find with this method that you’re actually able to do more than you think.
Break your big tasks into 25-minute goals. What piece of this task can you accomplish in 25 minutes? What’s the next step that you can then finish in the next 25 minutes?
Batch your small tasks. That means doing similar things at the same time. Maybe you need to respond to three emails, send five text messages, and block off two weeks on your calendar. Doing all of the emails back to back lets you stay in one mindset doing one activity using one program--less room for distraction and wasted time. This way, you can knock out all your emails in one 25-minute block. Done.
Set the timer, and get started!
