The Pomodoro Technique – How I Make it Work For Me

I am very, very good at procrastinating. Social media and emails help me with this a lot and I can spend an entire (school) day writing one post.

To be fair that is in between clothes washing, washing up, tidying, making myself 70 cups of tea, going to the loo a lot, picking up my phone 17,000 times, and sometimes exercising. But it still seems a bit ridiculous and makes me feel like I’ve got nowhere (which I haven’t really).

So recently I’ve been using the Pomordoro Technique to help me crack on with things and get shit done. It’s been making a huge difference to how productive I am, and it means I concentrate on one thing for a short while, which is possible even for me.

What is the Pomodoro Technique?

The Pomodoro Technique is a time management method developed by Francesco Cirillo. The technique uses a timer to break down work into intervals, traditionally 25 minutes in length, separated by short breaks. You can find out more about it if you want to, here.

How I use the Pomodoro Technique

I discovered this method a couple of years ago and used it sporadically but I found that for me it often just put pressure on me and made me feel panicked to get something done in that time. I was trying to use it for most of the day and it didn’t work that well.

Recently though I have been procrastinating like mad and feeling very unproductive and distracted, and so I thought I would try the Pomodoro Method again.

So, I don’t use it all the time, but when I have a few posts to get done, or when I need to write but just can’t focus, I put the timer for 25 minutes on and work on one blog post solidly for that time. It particularly helps when I’ve been putting off writing a particular post because I know that I only have to do it for 25 minutes and then I can have a break or do something else. But usually by the end of that 25 minutes I have the bulk of any blog post done. I am using this Pomodoro Timer at the moment.

It also works brilliantly for editing blog photos, which can be very boring, so I can just get as much done as I can in 25 minutes and then move on to something less repetitive, and go back to it when I’m ready if I didn’t get them all done.

I can get so overwhelmed when I have a lot of sponsored posts with deadlines to write, and so end up panicking and getting nowhere fast. But using the Pomodoro Technique to write in short 25 minute blocks allows me to focus on one thing, and get it done! Plus I can usually manage to ignore social media and my emails for that long!

When I have a lot going on and a lot I need to get done in a short space of time, and when I can’t focus, this really helps me stay on track.

I don’t always use the five-minute break in between, I just get on with my next thing for another 25 minutes. But actually quite often it does make me get up and have a wee and make a tea, rather than sitting here trying to hold on for the loo just to get something done (which I have done far too often). Before I was forcing myself to keep going, just to get something done which means I can’t concentrate properly and it takes way too long.

I have become so much more productive and it’s making me feel so much better. I don’t use it every day; sometimes I just need a more chilled day with no time restrictions. But for when I’m feeling really overwhelmed and unable to focus on one thing, it works absolutely brilliantly and now means I can get a good few blog posts done in a day. They’re not always finished at the end of the 25 minutes, in fact usually they aren’t, but the bulk of the post will usually be done and I can go back and edit them and add pictures another time.

And yes, I did write this post in 25 minutes.

Have you ever used the Pomodoro Technique or anything similar? Do you think it could be something that could work for you?