Latest / Imperfect Marketing / Episode 139: Mastering Time Management: Uncovering the Potential of the Pomodoro Technique

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Episode 139: Mastering Time Management: Uncovering the Potential of the Pomodoro Technique · Imperfect Marketing

• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Hello and welcome back to another Imperfect Marketing Brief.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, kendra Corman.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Today we're going to be talking about mastering time management with the Pomodoro technique.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: I think I've talked about this a million other times, but it never hurts to have a reminder.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: So I leverage something called the Timetimer, which, if you're watching on YouTube, I am showing it to everybody here.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Let's see if we can get it to like show up, right, because my light's too bright, but it is a little timer that allows me to do what's called Pomodoro's.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: When you're working, it is really easy for us to get distracted, get off track, not do what we need to do at the first time, and since we're in the fourth quarter, we want to be more focused and more productive, right?
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: So when we talk about the basic principles of the Pomodoro technique, it's 25-minute work intervals, or Pomodoro's, with short breaks of five minutes and then longer breaks after multiple Pomodoro's.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: I was actually in a meeting with a client several months ago and I was talking about my holiday gifts for my clients and I said, hey, I'm thinking about getting some of my clients these time timers because I love them for Pomodoro's.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Do you think it's stupid?
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: And the client said what's a Pomodoro and I'm like, oh my gosh, I feel like I can't believe that someone doesn't know what a Pomodoro is, and so I was a little bit surprised and actually they were like this is pretty cool.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: I feel like it would really help me out to increase my self-care, because she puts her head down and usually doesn't stop, so that was a really cool way of thinking about it.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Now the Pomodoro technique is supposed to help you stay focused.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: I think it was developed and leveraged a lot in the ADHD community to really help people stay focused, because you have one task and you have 25 minutes to get it done or to get a certain part of it done.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: When that timer goes off, that's when you move to the next five minute break.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: One of the key principles of this is that there are no distractions.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: All you have next to you is a little pad of paper where you can write down things that pop into your head, but you're staying focused.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: You're focused on the task at hand.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: You're not letting yourself be distracted by social media notifications and email notifications and all of that fun stuff.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: But it definitely helps you stay focused.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: It also helps with a little bit of work-life balance, because when you're taking breaks and you're not getting burnt out.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: When I have a day of Pomodoro, I am nowhere near as exhausted as I am and I have a larger feeling of accomplishment and I get more done than on the days that I don't have Pomodoros.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: So, again, something to think about.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: And I actually run most of my days and my free hours throughout the days in between meetings with Pomodoros, and sometimes it can be email.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: Have you ever opened your email and just gotten lost in it, never gotten out and been like what did I do all day?
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: Well, I'll tell you pretty much nothing, because you were in your email all day getting distracted with those notifications and you didn't get anything done.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: Pomodoros can really help about that and it also helps you better estimate the time needed for various tasks.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: So once you do three Pomodoros and you get something done, you might have thought it would only take you like 20 minutes, and then you find that it takes closer to like 80.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: That's insane, right?
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: So a task that should take 20, that you think takes 20 minutes, takes an hour and a half.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: That's a big discrepancy and, don't get me wrong, I've been there, done that, have the t-shirt, but you need to take notes on that so that you know how to better time, block your calendar and make sure that you're getting the work done that you need.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: So how do you get started?
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: Well, you start with a timer.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: Okay, so that's really all you need.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: There are some specialized apps to run Pomodoro's to, but I have a time timer.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: It's actually a brand name.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: You can get it off of Amazon.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: I'll put a link in the show notes for you.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: But it is a very cool tool and it is a visual representation of the timer.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: I like it using it better than a cell phone or anything along those lines.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: I sometimes will have Alexa use it, or I'll use my watch if I'm at home.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: It just depends.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: The reason why is because if you use your cell phone, you're more likely to get distracted with the notifications popping up on your cell phone, so you definitely don't want that to happen.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: And then think about you know again what you want to achieve.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: Okay, so you want to have a clear objective for each Pomodoro.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: There are some communities that thrive off Pomodoro's and you tell everybody what you're going to get done and then whether or not you got it done.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: That is a really cool way to stay accountable to yourself by leveraging others.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: Then you can start to think about your break activities.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: You get five minute breaks and then, on longer ones, you get 15 to 30 minute breaks.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: Take a walk, get up.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, when I'm not doing Pomodoro's, my watch is always yelling at me it's time to move.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: Stop telling me it's time to move.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: It's like I'm in the middle of like four meetings in a row.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: What am I going to do?
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: Because there are no body breaks in Zoom right, it's like so frustrating.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: But again, I want you to think about maybe you work in a walk up and down the hallway or around the block, or maybe you just go and fill up some water.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: But think about some productive and relaxing tech activities to do on your short and long breaks.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: What would reward you and keep you going.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: Some tips for success relating to Pomodoro's.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: First off I've repeated this a few times and that's avoiding distractions.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: So again, turn off all notifications.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: Put your cell phone away in a drawer, someplace where you're not going to hear it vibrate, not going to hear it ring, anything like that.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: You need to be 100% focused during this time.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: Okay, and then again you can adapt this technique.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: I find that there was a friend of mine who didn't like doing 25-minute Pomodoro's.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: She depending on what she was working on, if she was finding her groove, she would set maybe a 30 or 45-minute Pomodoro.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: But again, it still helped her to keep going and break things up and not be exhausted and be focused on what she needed to do.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: And the weekends I've been known to do reverse Pomodoro's, so five minutes of work and 20 minutes of rest, or 10 minutes of work and 20 minutes of rest.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: Again, break it up.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: However it is that works best for you.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: Okay, again, I use it all the time.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: I love the Pomodoro method.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: It has really helped me get things done that I don't want to do.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: Okay, I know I needed to call the credit card company about a fraud issue and I'm like I don't want to.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: I didn't want to wait on hold.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: I had to deal with Verizon customer service for something else and I needed to call them.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: So I set up Pomodoro for dealing with some phone calls I needed to make.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: It helps me do what some people call eat the frog right Do the things that I don't want to do and do it in a set amount of time.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: A couple things that I would make sure that you don't do, and that's skip the breaks.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: Actually, taking the breaks is what gives you the best benefit from this technique, because you can come back a little bit refreshed and if you're creating content or leveraging different things, you have a little bit of a fresh perspective and you're not going to keep going down a path that maybe you want to tweak after you have a little bit of time to think about it.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: And then you don't want to overcommit.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: Okay, you don't want to plan too many Pomodoro's, not allow time for any unplanned tasks or interruptions.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: So again, yes, I do a ton of Pomodoro's, but some of my Pomodoro's are email.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: It's email time.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: I time my amount of time that I'm allowed in my emails.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: And then sometimes my next Pomodoro might not be the task that I thought I'd be working on.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: It might be another round of email or it might be working on something that popped in because of email.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: Again, don't overcommit.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: You're going to have to be able to adjust your day to whatever it is that you need to get done that day.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: I hope that you learned a little bit about Pomodoro's and how to work them.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: If you have questions about them.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: Let me know they are one of my most favorite time management and productivity activities that I do in my day, so thank you again.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: So much for tuning into another Imperfect Marketing Brief.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: I hope to see you on another episode.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: Have a great rest of your day.