Ciao gente!
Spero che abbiate passato una buona giornata. Sorry I just got swayed with my Italian. I wonder what my life would have been if I was born an Italian, I love Italian pizza and Rome after all. What if my ancestors are from Italy? Oh I am getting distracted again. I should come back from my imaginary world tour now and set up my Pomodoro.
Well, to all those who don’t know, Pomodoro is tomato in Italian. Oh no, please don’t think that I am trying to give Italian vocabulary lesson or obsessed with Italian. I just here to introduce a very unique productivity technique. Yes, you read it right productivity technique to combat procrastination with a TOMATO and a FROG. (Ribbit, Ribbit, Ribbit)
But before diving in tell me how many of you have eaten a frog? If yes how was it and if not imagine yourself eating it. Disgusting right?
I know non of you have ever thought of eating a frog at a fancy restaurant on good shiny pleasant day. But what if you are in a battle field, starving to death and only thing you have is the frog. Would you eat it? Of course you would have given it a try because of your survival instinct. Same is the case with the work you don’t like doing. Its that frog. You don’t like doing it but you have to do it to survive and get things done.
I hope the title would have been much clearer by now, it means to do that work with tomato not literally tomato though. Francesco Cirillo was an Italian procrastinator who found a tomato shaped timer lying in his kitchen and thus this lazy fellow named his technique after a tomato. There not much of a fancy story behind it. So Pomodoro technique says to use timer to focus to do the things you don’t want to.
- Select a task to work on.
- Set the timer to 25 mins time interval
- Start working with full concentration and continue to do it by force till 25 mins.
- Keep on noting down all the distractions or thoughts that came to haunt you during that time.
- Once the timer rings, take 5 mins short break and mark a star on a piece of paper
- Set the timer again for 25 mins and repeat the process till you get four stars on the paper
- Once you get four stars, take a little longer break may be of 10–15 mins
- Repeat the process until the work is done and then reward yourself.
I thought to give this technique a try to see it it really works or the Italian procrastinator was just wanted to tell us that at least he tried.
While writing this blog I followed the Pomodoro technique to eat this frog, I mean complete this blog that I really love writing. I was amazed to see that this tomato technique really worked for me and I was able to complete this blog in 3 gos. I set my timer to 10 mins interval to brainstorm, research and jolt everything done. It was fun for me and I realized that I have been doing this my entire life. I was just not aware of the terminologies. I prepared for my exams by blocking an interval of 1 hour and taking 10 minutes break between each hour till I finish a chapter. At the end of the chapter I would take 45 mins break before starting a new one. I have come to a conclusion that this technique does allow us to produce quality work in short time with larger focus span. I am planning incorporate this technique in my daily life tasks consciously. I should also take note that keeping the cell phone away from my sight and a quiet environment increases the effectiveness of this technique.
“Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.”
Alexander Graham Bell
If you want to burn one of the objective in your list, you need to focus. I recommend everyone to give this technique a try and increase your productivity. Remember everyone has got exactly 86400 seconds in a day what sets you apart is how you utilize these seconds.
That’s it, from my side. If you liked what I wrote don’t forget to clap and leave a comment below.
Ciao ciao. :D