A question to you all to start with “How did you pass your
school/college exams?” . Now don’t get offended…as long as you are not an uber
topper, most among us would have done the following…
Physically attended the classes(mentally absent!)/bunked the
classes for 6 long months of the semester…
Never ever opened the prescribed book for the course
during this 6 months…
Then they announced the exam schedule, and gave study
holidays…still nothing more than a cursory look at the book….
The D-day …eve of exam day arrived…you thrust yourself into
action…you brooked no distraction…had zen-like focus on the subject…burned midnight
oil…studied even on the way to college, while riding the pillion on your friend’s
2-wheeler !
At the end of it all, You had a disheartened feeling about “What
if I had used up my time better?”
Francesco Cirillo was one such average student… he went through this time anxiety during his schooldays in the 1980s. Fransesco
however did not stop there…he researched about how to organize himself better
by studying his time “leaks”. At the end of it all, he came up with a
time-management technique called the Pomodoro technique
In brief, following are the steps of the Pomodoro technique:
STEP 1: Choose a task to be
accomplished.
STEP 2: Set the Pomodoro to 25
minutes (the Pomodoro is the timer)
STEP 3: Work
on the task until the Pomodoro rings, then put a check on your sheet of paper
STEP 4: Take
a short break (5 minutes is OK)
STEP 5: Every
4 Pomodoros take a longer break
With this simple system, Fransesco was able to overcome his
time anxiety much better…I am sure you would be surprised and even question
about the effectiveness of such a simple
system as above can produce results…Please believe me …it works! …Here is my attempt to explain why it works?…
First, Choosing a task to accomplish. Let us face it…Most of
us work on the task as it turns up, without understanding its urgency or
importance…For example , in the student life above , we would choose to drop/interrupt
our study-time for a casual chat with a friend who dropped-in without
announcement. In the Pomodoro method, that is not acceptable…you choose a
task and commit yourself with that one and only task (only!) for the next 25 minutes…So choose a task , more
important the task the better (The 80/20 Rule…20% of tasks produce 80% of results!)
Second, Set the Pomodoro to 25 minutes. I use the NowDoThis timer. You could also use your
own timer…the key to choosing a time is that the , there should be a visible
progress of the Pomodoro as you go through it…(Parkinson's rule...Give yourself the least amount of time to complete the Task)
Third, Work on the
task until the Pomodoro rings…this is the most toughest step because it will
test your focusing skill on the current task on hand. You will be bothered by
internal distractions …thoughts arising in your mind , about the next task to
do, an e-mail that you missed to send, follow-up that you need to do with your colleague.
The best way to handle the internal distraction is to make a one-line note to
come back at a later time…You SHOULD NOT disturb the current Pomodoro by interrupting
the current task in progress. Distractions could be external as well..like …an
e-mail that you just received in your Inbox,
Incoming mobile phone call, somebody dropping in your cubicle for a
discussion. This can be more trickier to handle. A solution to handle External
distraction such as somebody dropping in your cubicle is to politely ask them
if they could wait for the 20-25 minutes for you to get back! Again the
bottom-line is ……You SHOULD NOT disturb the current Pomodoro by interrupting
the current task in progress.
Fourth, you need a break to regroup yourself after 25
minutes of hard focus…remember step 3 is going to be very tough and even
exhausting sometimes…you deserve this 5 minute break to reminisce , regroup and
revise , before you jump into the next Pomodoro. Only time you may not need a
break is when you have hit a state of “Flow” with the current activity!
Finally , this time management method works because …we are
dealing with a finite time of 30 minutes…not a second more …not a second less.
After all, each one of us have got only a finite time here!