Could the secret to effective time management be thinking in tomatoes rather than in hours? You might not have heard of it, but millions of people use the Pomodoro Technique in their offices and schools to increase their productivity, improve concentration skills and eliminate mental lethargy.
We have compiled all the details related to the “Pomodoro” Technique, meaning “tomato” in Italian. During this time period, where working from home is becoming the norm, you will find clues to make your life easier in this article.
What is the Pomodoro Technique?
This popular time management method asks you to create pomodoros, which are focused work sessions, and to take short breaks to promote sustained concentration and to stave off mental fatigue.
Developed in the late 1980s by a university student named Francesco Cirillo, the Pomodoro Technique was created out of a personal need. Cirillo was struggling to focus on his studies and complete assignments, and so he decided to set his tomato-shaped kitchen timer to 10 minutes multiple times and focus only on his studies during these 10-minute periods. Realizing that his method worked, Cirillo gradually developed his technique over time and even wrote a 130-page book, but the strength of method still lies in its simplicity.
Who Can Use the Pomodoro Technique?
Although understanding the technique and internalizing it might take practice, anyone from an elementary school student to an overwhelmed white-collar worker, or from a student studying for his university tests to a homemaker burdened by the work at home, can use the Pomodoro Technique.
The Pomodoro Technique might be perfect for you if you:
- let little distractions often disrupt your work routine,
- consistently work past the point of optimal productivity,
- have many open-ended projects that could take enormous amounts of time, such as studying for an exam, running a project, or conducting research,
- are overly optimistic when it comes to how much you can get done in a day,
- enjoy goal setting in a game format.
How Do You Apply the Pomodoro Technique?
Before working with the Pomodoro Technique, you would need to get a timer and make a smart work plan about what you need to accomplish in one day. You can also use the timer on your smart watch.
The technique consists of 6 basic steps:
Choose a task from your work plan
This could be an urgent task or something you have procrastinated about for a long time. What matters here is not the size of the task but that it deserves your complete, undivided attention.
Set your timer for 25 minutes
Promise yourself to dedicate 25 minutes to your task and not to answer phone calls, check e-mails or look at any notifications you receive, not even out of the corner of your eye. Trust us, you can do this. We are only talking about 25 minutes!
Work on your task until the timer rings
During the next 25 minutes, delve into your work. If you suddenly realize you need to do something else, take a note on a piece of paper.
When the timer rings, make a checkmark on a piece of paper or on your pomodoro sheet
By working without interruption, you have earned 1 pomodoro!
Take a five-minute break
After each pomodoro, take 5 minutes off. Do some breathing exercises, meditate briefly or drink a cup of coffee to relax and take your mind off of your task.
After 4 pomodoros, take a longer break
To relax your mind and digest the learning, take a 20 or 30 minute break after 4 pomodoro sessions.
3 Golden Rules to Increase Your Productivity while Working with the Pomodoro Technique
The 25-minute work periods are the core of the method, but there are three fundamental rules that you should focus on to get the most out of the Pomodoro Technique.
Break down complex projects
If a task requires more than four pomodoros, it needs to be divided into smaller actionable steps. Applying this rule will help you make sustainable and continuous progress on your projects.
Put small tasks together
Any tasks that will take less than one pomodoro should be combined with other simple tasks. This will help you complete little tasks you had been procrastinating about. For example, setting a doctor’s appointment, paying rent or other bills, writing correspondences for solving a problem, or organizing the files on your computer could be combined into one session.
Do not stop working before the timer rings
The pomodoro is an indivisible unit of time and cannot be broken for checking emails, sending texts or joining group chats. Any ideas, tasks, or requests that come up should be taken note of to come back to later.
In the event of an unavoidable disruption, take your five-minute break and start a 25-minute session again. Tracking these interruptions as they occur and identifying what hinders your work the most would help you reflect on how to avoid them.
The rule applies even if you finish your given task before the timer goes off. You can use the rest of your time for improving skills or scope of knowledge. For example, you could spend your extra pomodoro time reading the articles you had been planning to read or making a list of areas you want to conduct more research on.
What are the Benefits of the Pomodoro Technique?
Pomodoro makes it easy to get started on new tasks
Research has shown that procrastination has little to do with laziness or lack of self-control but rather, we do it to avoid negative feelings. It's uncomfortable to start a big task or project, as it involves a lot of uncertainty. The Pomodoro Technique helps you divide this big task into tiny, manageable steps, whereby you can take that intimidating first step This way, instead of being overwhelmed by the enormity of what you’re taking on, you focus on the small parts of it.
Helps you identify and combat distractions
If you’ve ever been interrupted when you were working, you know how difficult regaining focus can be. The constant stream of information coming through emails, social media notifications, and team chats distract us and make it more difficult to work.
While it would be easy to blame technology for this problem, studies suggest over half of all workday distractions are self-derived, meaning, we pull ourselves out of focus. Checking e-mails or Twitter feeds can look like insignificant interruptions, but when you put them together, they add up.
The Pomodoro Technique helps you resist all of these interruptions and trains your brain to focus. Each pomodoro is dedicated to one task, and each break is a chance to reset and bring your attention back to your work.
Changes your perception of time
The Pomodoro Technique protects you from falling trap to the planning fallacy. When you start working in short sessions, time is no longer an abstract concept but a concrete and measurable one. The concept of time changes from a negative one, “something that has been lost”, to a positive one, “ a measure of productivity”. This change in your perception of time helps you plan for your work more realistically and adopt a more consistent work habit.
Tips for New Pomodoro Practioners
- Plan your pomodoros ahead of time.
- Make a task list for each day and decide how many pomodoros each task would require.
- If you work an 8-hour workday, the ideal number of pomodoros is 16.
- The more you practice the technique, the better sense you will gain of how many high-quality pomodoros you're able to complete in a day.
- If 25 minutes is too short for you, try longer work intervals and measure how productive you are. If you lack the concentration required for 25-minute periods, you can also try out shorter periods and find the ideal time length for you.
- If you are working from a computer, you should try to stay away from all screens during your breaks, including the telephone, and rest your mind.
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