Got several tasks to finish and not even done with one yet?
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Do you sit for several unproductive hours only to leave the office with very little accomplished?
Well, seems like I can be of help.
Let me go straight to the point, perhaps you really need this information, so why waste your time (since you won’t be getting it back) and withhold this help any longer?
Let me introduce you to a technique so simple yet so effective, a technique that can help you organise and get things done, even if you are a video game-loving, social media surfer like me. Ever heard of the Pomodoro technique? yeah, maybe not and that’s why you are probably here unless some programmers cryptic algorithm threw this article your way.
Photo by Oladimeji Ajegbile on Unsplash
The Pomodoro Technique is a time management method developed by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s.[1] The technique uses a timer to break down work into intervals, traditionally 25 minutes in length, separated by short breaks. Each interval is known as a pomodoro, from the Italian word for ‘tomato’, after the tomato-shaped kitchen timer that Cirillo used as a university student.
The above is lifted straight from Wikipedia, why reinvent the wheel when you can just copy.
Anyways, the Pomodoro technique encourages you to split your mammoth office task or notes into bite-sized chunks of time, so you can take one small step at a time to slowly finishing up the boring 88-line SQL Query or the long list of clients in the excel document that your boss gave you.
Finally, The Hack!
Dividing your tasks into several bits alone sounds like work enough to make you jump in and try getting work done straight away (work that you will probably inefficiently finish, that’s if you finish…)
Therefore, do this instead, find a Pomodoro app in your app store, I personally recommend this one: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.superelement.pomodoro
Features:
- Allows you to list the tasks like a to-do list, so you can check off the finished ones.
- You can set a custom duration for each session before breaks, you can do the same for breaks too.
- You can create Folders for similar tasks for organisation.
- This app is cross-platform and works on all the most popular platforms (Apple Ecosystem, Android and PC) and the data will sync across your devices.
- Another interesting feature is the “Focused Mode”, where the app will block access to apps that are likely to lure you away into the world of dawdling.
Conclusion
Using this app, I greatly improved my time management in the office, the short breaks I added in between Pomodoros also helped my stress, physically and mentally. Overall, I enjoy working more when I use this method. Highly recommend. Also, a major key of this method is to remain completely FOCUSED on the task until it’s done or it’s break time. Utilise your break time to take a walk or something and come back refreshed.
Repeat cycle.
Thanks for reading …
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Top comments (4)
Planning and prioritize my to-do list are the two things that really help me get things done. I did this with task management software like Todoist or Quire. This helps me to get more focus on doing my tasks.
Lately I use focus-todo and sometimes notion, other times just a pen a paper, whichever that's working tbh
How’s the coding journey going Nat?
So far so good, am so deep into OOP JS and Data Structures that am eventually stuck, slowly figuring out though