In today’s fast-paced world, there just isn’t enough time in the day. Finding the time to complete work and take care of daily responsibilities is its own full-time job. With more people working from home, new strategies for time management have emerged on the digital scale. Effective systems can help people work more productively and complete their daily tasks in less time.
Although there are many different digital systems that individuals and companies are using to stay on top of their to-dos, not every system is applicable for every worker or every business. Instead of trying to make pieces fit that won’t, look to time management techniques. Time management strategies allow you to incorporate action steps into the systems that work the best for you and your team.
By focusing more on productivity as opposed to digital systems, you can accomplish more and customize your strategy to work with any system you prefer for task management. The pomodoro technique is a one time strategy that teaches people how to utilize the time they have available, no matter what their schedules look like.
If the idea of managing your time based on your schedule sounds appealing, read on to learn more about the Pomodoro technique, pomodoro timer with analytics, and how breaking your day into 25-minute segments can benefit your productivity levels.
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What Is The Pomodoro Timer Technique?
University researchers determined that taking small breaks in five-minute increments leads to dramatic improvement in work focus. Rather than working on a task for extended amounts of time, taking these small breaks make it easier for workers to focus intently and get more done in a shorter amount of time.
Why Is It Called ‘The Pomodoro Technique?’
The technique’s name comes from Francesco Cirillo, the university student who discovered that breaking his workload into 25-minute blocks improved his productivity and ability to get work done. Cirillo used a tomato timer to track his 25-minute blocks, which is what he named the technique after. The word ‘pomodoro’ is Italian for tomato.
How Does It Work?
The actual pomodoro timer is a widget tracker that makes it possible to create balance between working and taking five-minute breaks. The analytics also make it possible to track your progress, so you gain a greater understanding of your workflow pace as time goes on. There is also a work mode activation activity that you will be prompted to complete before you begin working.
The app will ask you to take a deep breath before getting to work. You can also increase the rest time you take to meet your needs. The pomodoro timer also lets you mute notifications from your Slack group, centralize any background noises, and overview your calendar and schedule, all at the same time.
What Are The Benefits?
- Many people feel they could get more work done if they weren’t so distracted. A major benefit of the pomodoro timer technique is that you can silence your distractions and maintain a deeper focus for your 25-minute work session.
- Eliminating distraction can give you a way to focus more deliberately on the task at hand. In this way, you can complete more work in a shorter amount of time.
Beyond the benefits of practical time management and relief from consistent work, this method allows for:
- Anxiety Relief: less stress and an increased sense of calm around meeting deadlines
- Enhanced productivity: The technique can help people overcome procrastination by taking things one moment at a time.
- Time Management: You can manage your time more effectively by seeing work as a cycle of starting and stopping, as opposed to being in work mode for hours at a time.
- Self-reflection: Reflecting on your work progress can give you insights you need to make changes and utilize this cyclic work method more effectively.
- Extreme Focus: The pomodoro timer through Session can also be customized so that you can disable your access to online distractions like websites. This way, you can stay more focused on your tasks. If you want to customize your time a little differently, you can do that as well. You’re also able to pause your sessions as needed.
Why Is It So Effective?
The breaks help to alleviate the stress of constant work and give you the means to refocus on your tasks when it’s time to get back to work. You may have heard about the importance of stretching and drinking water while you’re working; the breaks essentially provide you with that same kind of brain-boosting recovery you need to get back to work quickly. Working with the pomodoro timer, you can get into a rhythm while you work so that you can more easily get into the flow of work and reduce the anxiety that often comes along with meeting deadlines.
From a common sense perspective, we know that the brain is a muscle. When we use our muscles during exercise, we train them until they fatigue. Once we reach that point, we take a moment to recharge before getting back to exercising. The brain needs that same rhythm to perform effectively.
We also know that mindfulness enhances focus and attention. With the pomodoro timer, we can take five-minute breaks to rest in a mindful way. By detaching from busy thinking, we can then go back into work with greater focus than we would have if we kept going. The pomodoro timer uses 5-minute mental breaks to help you to recharge, almost as if you were taking a power nap.
Why Is It Set To 25 Minutes?
Scientific research revealed that 25-minute sessions and 5-minute breaks were the best measured time combinations to achieve boosted focus, enhanced learning, and maximized productivity. These analytically-driven results prove that with the pomodoro timer technique, you can do more with the time you have.
One Pomodoro At A Time
If you’re interested in using the pomodoro timer, download the Session app and try it out for yourself. Make time work for you by breaking things down one pomodoro at a time!