Assignments: The Pomodoro Technique (Day 6)

I hope you're sleeping a little better than last week, enjoying using Habitica, rewarding yourself with guilt-free TV, getting through your example questions, logging your days, and feeling like the piles of laundry around you are getting smaller.

Do you find you forget to log your day?  I do, so I added a Habitica Habit that says "spin a tale of yesteryear".  The description, in case I forget what my flight of fancy was about, says simply "log recent days".  I've got it with a Difficulty of Easy since it's the remembering that's hard.  If I've gotten two or three days behind, I click the habit once for each day I catch up on.

The Pomodoro Technique

Let's get back to your schoolwork.  First, create a Habitica habit called something like "chunk of work".  That on its own isn't enough; we're going to need a lot more techniques, so here's a powerful one I want to introduce today.

This combines material from three sources that, at a glance, have nothing to do with each other; the so-called "Pomodoro" technique [2], Neil Fiore's excellent book on procrastination [3], and the FlyLady [1]. 

I don't have a motivational blurb for you today... it's Monday and I am also weighed down by all the things that I didn't get done on the weekend!  All I can tell you is, this works for me, so you can experiment with it and see how it works for you.  Here's my daily log from the past few days.

We're adding something new today, as you might be able to see (click for a larger image if necessary).  Yesterday, after I wrote down my timed tasks, I decided on and wrote down the two main big things I wanted to work on.  Each time I did a chunk of work, I put an X next to the task.  It's a bit troublesome that we have to log these chunks of work twice - once in Habitica and once on paper.  The reason is that Habitica doesn't track what we actually did, and it's going to be useful for us to go back and see how long certain tasks took.  It's also nice to look back and see what you did the over the past week, month, or term!

Here's something you need to know about the chunks of work.  As I mentioned before, they're not a way to trick yourself into working longer - you should respect the timer and STOP the minute it goes off.  It's tempting to finish your thought or sentence, but I encourage you to try not doing that.  Sure, there's a risk you'll forget what you were doing.  But if you take a five minute break (go to the washroom, get a drink of water, wander around the room and hum your favourite song) and get back to it, you should see some benefits.  You've just had a mini break, so you can focus again and can work better than if you'd put in a solid hour; it's easier to get started on the next chunk of work; and you know you get another reprieve in 25 minutes.

Here's where FlyLady comes in... she says you can do anything for 15 minutes.  I certainly have had days, in the midst of depression, where I had to tell myself I could do anything for 60 seconds.  Because of my physical limitations, I can't do something like housecleaning for 25 minutes.  So for any reason at all, if 25 minutes doesn't sound right to you, choose the time that does seem right for your task!  You can either define your "chunks of work" loosely and let any block of time be a chunk, or you can create separate habits for different lengths of time.

Am I telling you to do this all day long?  No!  If you manage to do four chunks of work with five minute breaks between each, congratulations!  That's awesome!  Two hours will have passed, so take a longer break, of 30 minutes to an hour.  You've probably racked up a nice chunk of gold to spend.

Neil Fiore talks about changing our thinking from "I have to finish X" to "I choose to start working on X", and calls the skill we need "persistent starting".  The Pomodoro technique makes the starting easier, and then if we start enough times, the finishing takes care of itself.  I also bring Dr. Fiore in to this task because he points out that for most of us, five hours of truly productive time is all we can expect in a day and maintain over the long term.  Attending (or teaching!) classes and tutorials counts as productive time, so after you've taken out those hours, figure out how many chunks of time you can reasonably expect.  For example, I have a 1.5 hour class today, plus I'm meeting with a classmate for a half-hour beforehand.  That's 2 of my 5 hours, so I don't expect to complete more than 6 chunks of work today.  But, I know from looking back at my daily logs that I almost never have to stop work because I've used up all my available time.  This is one of the powerful data collection techniques we're going to use.

What I forgot to show above was how I write "DONE!!!!!" with as many exclamation points as I can fit on the line after I finish a task!  Obviously I didn't finish my assignment in an hour, but I did finish the clothes organizing in three chunks of 25 minutes.  You'll see the results of that in a couple of days.

So, start a fresh page, title it "Pomodoro" or "Chunks of Work", and jot down your thoughts.  How do you think this will go for you?  Do you see any benefits in working this way?  What will be the hardest part for you?

See you tomorrow... and if this is starting to feel like a slog, don't worry yet... tomorrow I have something fun for you!

[1] Cilley, Marla. “FlyLady.net.” FlyLady.net, flylady.net/.

[2] Cirillo, Francesco. “The Pomodoro Technique® - Proudly Developed by Francesco Cirillo | Cirillo Consulting GmbH.” Cirillo Company, francescocirillo.com/pages/pomodoro-technique.

[3]  Fiore, Neil A. The Now Habit: a Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play. Tarcher/Penguin, 2007.