Today’s TAPtips is about Increased Productivity with the Pomodoro Technique. Have you tried the Pomodoro Technique? If so, what were your results?
Video Transcription:
Today’s TAPtips is on increased productivity with the Pomodoro Technique. I first learned of the Pomodoro Technique several years ago while reading Quora posting, and felt it was pretty simple and easy to implement. So I figured, “What the heck? Let’s give it a try.” Since then, I’ve seen almost an immediate increase in productivity, while implementing the Pomodoro Technique. I’d highly recommend it, at least giving it a try.
At the core, you start off by planning, figuring out what your priorities are and what task you want to accomplish. From there, you take the highest priority task and work on it for an uninterrupted 25 minutes. Now, there’s no hard rule around if you’re making incredible progress at 25 minutes to stop, so continue working. It’s all about increased productivity.
From there, at the end of that work cycle, you take a five-minute break, a short, little break to refresh your mind. Stretch your legs. Maybe grab a cup of coffee. Then, after four work sessions, 25-minutes of focused work followed by 5-minute breaks, you take a longer break, 20 to 30 minutes to really refresh your mind. Go for a longer walk, stretch your legs, and rejuvenate. Again, the whole goal is to increase your productivity, get more done in the limited time that you have.
One Pomodoro cycle is a planning session, followed by four work sessions and breaks. Then, at the end, you take that longer break of 25 minutes, 20, 30 minutes, whatever makes sense to you and works for you. Again, there’s no hard or fast rules. It’s all figuring out what works best for you. Here’s how I plan my tasks.
I create a simple Trello board where I have a backlog, where I enter any task, any items that I want to get done. At the beginning of each week, typically a Sunday evening or a Monday morning, I’ll fill up the ‘this week’ list, with tasks I want to accomplish or try and accomplish this week.
Each and every morning, I’ll plan my today. I’ll drag all the cards and tasks that I want to accomplish or try and accomplish for that day into the ‘Today’ column. Then, as I work on the items, I move the task over to the Current column. When I’m finished, I move them to the ‘Done’ column.
To me, this has been an incredible tool on increasing my productivity. If you’ve not tried the Pomodoro Technique, give it a try. It’s simple, easy to use, and I’m confident you’ll increase your productivity.
Thank you for your interest in today’s TAPtips, and I’d love to hear your feedback and comments. Thank you.
