The One Productivity Tip That Helps Me Do The Work I Really Don't Want to Do!

If you look up what Pomodoro means you'll get pictures of tomatoes, cause that what this means in Italian.

So your one big tip is a tomato?

The what? The tomato technique?

Well, yeah. It was invented in 1980 by an Italian dude and he decided to name it after those old kitchen timers that looked like a tomato back then.

Okay, How Does it Work?

It’s pretty simple.

All you do is set a timer to 25 min. Decide what you’ll do in those 25 mins (do this before you start the timer.)

After the timer is up, you set it for 5 min. You rest for those 5 mins. Doing anything BUT work on what you were working on. You just finished 1 Pomodoro.

Then repeat this cycle 3 more times, for a total of 4 Pomodoros.

After 4 Pomodoros, you’d have worked for 2 hours. After that you set a timer for a longer break (15, 20 or even 30mins) and then do it all over again.

You can segment your Pomodoros however you want (40min work, 10min break for instance). I just recommend and prefer the original 25/5 segmentation cause it doesn't fry or overwork my brain.

But but...what If I'm in Flow?

Well, not all techniques can work for everyone and for every task.

The Pomodoro method isn’t the best for tasks that require a lot of creativity (writing, problem solving, art, planning, etc) because the timer interrupts you if you’re in flow state.

If you’re not sure what flow state is, it’s when you lose yourself in what you’re working on so much that you lose sense of time, space and basically you've missed lunch, dinner and almost forgot you needed to pick up your kid from daycare.

It’s a state that allows you to focus effortlessly. It’s when you’re in The Zone!

The Pomodoro method isn’t for those tasks, because those are better when you flow through them, feeling the work flow through you almost effortlessly. And when that flow state hits, we protect it with our lives!

It’s really for the ones we don’t want to do. So it can work great for studying, answering emails, work in general, and basically any task you’d benefit from dividing into segments.

How Does it Help?

The benefit of the pomodoro method is in two things. But it has so much more for me personally.

It’s based on the fact that we’re able to focus more on our tasks if we know that we’re only focusing for a short period of time on a particular task.

It promises the reward of taking a break at the end of our focus time. So, even when you can’t take it anymore and look at the clock to find you have 2 mins left, it usually encourages you to push through those 2 mins and finish the task.

And if we learned anything from James Clear’s Atomic Habits, one of the best ways for us to start a new habit is by having a clear immediate reward after the behaviour we want to do. And the pomodoro method does that!!

Also, (and this is the biggest reason why I've stuck with it for years now) it helps prevent your brain from burning out too early on while working. You know that feeling you get when you’ve been at your desk working/studying for 2 or 3 hours straight without any breaks. Yeah, you feel like you’d need a few seconds to remember your name if someone asked you after a session like that.

This technique doesn’t allow that to happen. Because you are constantly taking breaks, you're always feeling fresh when returning back to work/your studies because the break gives your mind...well...a break from working and stops it from burning out too soon.

Hot Tip

If you’re a student:

The pomodoro technique helps with memorizing because of the Primacy/Recency effect. Which states that we tend to remember the first and most recent thing we studied. So if you break down your studies into 25 min increments. You’ll have a lot more material affected by the Primacy and Recency effect, than you would a 1 or 2 hour session of cramming it.

If you’re an entrepreneur:

This method is a fantastic way to gauge how long a task takes you to do. So, next time you’re planning your week, you’ll know how much time to allot for each task since now you know that maybe answering emails takes around 2 Pomodoros (40mins) for instance, while editing a blog post takes only 1 ^_^

Now if you’re someone whose work involves more Flow State, there is a modified version of the Pomodoro Technique. I have it in the plans to write a blog post just for it. So, keep an eye out for that in the future!

Apps for The Pomodoro Method:

You can definitely just use your phone timer but if you’re like me and love having an app for everyyyything, this is my favorite one. (I don’t know if it has an android version but I'm sure if you search Pomodoro you’ll find several that you can use)

Download Focus Tomato Here

I also started using the Pomodor timer in the Lofi.co hub, it's nice cause it also comes with an alarm.

And that's it. If you really stick to it and force yourself not to work (even if you feel like you want to continue on your work), and you take that break, I promise it's going to make getting things done a lot more efficient. And I almost look forward to the thing I have to do but don't particularly enjoy now cause I know I'm just going in for 25 mins and then I'm out.

I really hope this helps and good luck with those emails, I'm sending Inbox Zero vibes your way

See you in the next one!