Pomodoro Technique: Using a simple phone app, scheduling 25 minutes of uninterrupted (attempt to) work, then guaranteed 5 minutes rest, etc.
Worked very well for me in the context of (software-development) work; there are a myriad tasks that are neither fun nor interesting, but which need to be done, and cannot be delegated to juniors. I started using pomodoros for half a day, where regular best-effort spouts of work are more important than being in “the zone” or perfectly rested and focused or whatever.
I’m quite sure that in my case it helped because I guaranteed myself that the un-fun part would soon be over: 25 minutes is actually extremely short for just about anything, the attempts didn’t drain me, and this helped to stop procrastinating. As a result, the remaining work-day wasn’t overshadowed by guilt (and also, doing that kind of work helps smoothen team-work, and so reaps other benefits as well).
The short-time part is very important BTW. Skipping the 5 minute rests made the technique ineffective quite quickly. Monkey see banana monkey want banana.
P.S.: The technique also helped me to avoid burning my brain-candle from both ends when I was working on something I liked extremely much. Instead of causing a crash-and-burn I could continue to work on that for longer, with better end-results.
Pomodoro Technique: Using a simple phone app, scheduling 25 minutes of uninterrupted (attempt to) work, then guaranteed 5 minutes rest, etc.
Worked very well for me in the context of (software-development) work; there are a myriad tasks that are neither fun nor interesting, but which need to be done, and cannot be delegated to juniors. I started using pomodoros for half a day, where regular best-effort spouts of work are more important than being in “the zone” or perfectly rested and focused or whatever.
I’m quite sure that in my case it helped because I guaranteed myself that the un-fun part would soon be over: 25 minutes is actually extremely short for just about anything, the attempts didn’t drain me, and this helped to stop procrastinating. As a result, the remaining work-day wasn’t overshadowed by guilt (and also, doing that kind of work helps smoothen team-work, and so reaps other benefits as well).
The short-time part is very important BTW. Skipping the 5 minute rests made the technique ineffective quite quickly. Monkey see banana monkey want banana.
P.S.: The technique also helped me to avoid burning my brain-candle from both ends when I was working on something I liked extremely much. Instead of causing a crash-and-burn I could continue to work on that for longer, with better end-results.
I augment Pomodoros with
UltraWorking’s Cycles, a check-list/spreadsheet for productive and focused work;
and Strechly, a cross-platform break reminder app.