Find Focus with the Pomodoro Technique
What does a tomato-shaped timer and studying have in common? The person to ask is Cirillo Pomodoro. As a university student, Pomodoro learned to manage his study time by setting a timer (which happened to be tomato-shaped…and ‘pomodoro’ is Italian for tomato) for 25 minutes and then taking a 5 minute break. He repeated this for up to four sessions and then took a longer break.
Pomodoro had so much success with this technique for managing time and being productive during study time that he named it ‘Pomodoro Technique’ and eventually wrote a book. Scientific evidence supports his technique and has been shared in a Cognition article in Science Direct. Brief breaks keep a person focused.
Are you interested in trying this for yourself or guiding your learners? Here are a few tips:
Find a timer. If you don’t have one and need to use your phone, turn off distractions such as notifications and social media and place it face down
Create a to-do or task list
Set the timer for 25 minutes and work on the task on the to-do list
When the timer goes off, take a 25 minute break
Repeat steps 3 and 4. After four Pomodoro sessions, take a 15-30 minute break
You might be wondering why these sessions help you accomplish your work? What is so special about the chunks of 25 minutes followed by a break?
Here are a few brief explanations. The Pomodoro technique
Empowers a person with the tool of time management
Reduces stress because tasks are getting completed
Makes a game out of ‘work’ or ‘monotonous’ task time
To dive deeper into the details about this time management too, check out Francesco Cirillo’s book Pomodoro Technique: The Acclaimed Time Management System That Has Transformed How We Work. Let me know how it goes!
