Introduction
How often do you want to start a task or learn something and get stuck on youtube or any social media? I would say pretty often. It happens to all of us and to me too.
This is called procrastination. Its just to easy for us to be distracted. The reason for that is most of the time one of two things. Either you have to do a unpleasant task like clean up your apartment where the reason for procrastination is quite clear. Cleaning up is boring. But maybe you want to learn something new, you are excited but you think "oh jeah just this youtube video then ill start..." and 2 hours later you finally start. Its hilarious that we procrastinate when we are excited to learn something new right?
Our brain
The problem is our brain. To learn something new activate the same regions in our brain as something bad happens. Short term: Learning new things = negativity. We have to trick our brain and for that we have a lot of tools. For exmaple if you want to learn something new like React you have to split this task in multiple little goals.
Maybe you first start with components and then jump into states and props. After this maybe you try to pass state down through props and then use events to go up again. And so on.
Each goal have to be so small that you can reach it quite fast and for each finished goal your brain will produce endorphine.
And endorphine is the opposite of negativity!
But let me show you the probably best technique against procrastination.
Pomodoro Technique
Let me introduce you to a technique that is quite simple but super effective when it comes to procrastination.
The Pomodoro Technique
Take a timer and set up a small time like 25 minutes. Within this time you work on your thing with high focus. When the time is over you make a pause of 5 minutes. Then you start over again. And again. And.. ok lets stop here.
I think you see the pattern.
Each interval is one pomodoro and after 4 pomodoros you may do a break of 20-30 minutes.
You can also change the time. You dont have to go with 25 minutes. Try different times and stick with the one that works the best for you!
If you have problems with procrastination try this out. It sounds too easy and maybe stupid to you but it works!
References
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1l4w7uHdNaQ
Conclusion
I hope you find this article helpful! Dont let procrastination slow you down or block you while reaching for your goals and dreams.
Top comments (2)
If you're on macOS, my favorite timer has been the following: github.com/michaelvillar/timer-app which can be installed via Homebrew. I use this not so much for the Pomodoro technique, but to limit the amount of time that I sink into a problem
Hey David,
thanks for sharing!
Right now im on windows but im planning to switch soon. Then i will check this out :)
Best Regards