Reduce Your Anxiety, Hack Your Productivity, And Say Goodbye To Procrastination With The Pomodoro Technique!
The fast-paced, information-heavy world we live in is disabling our brain’s capacity and productivity, our physical and mental health, which is increasing our anxiety. The overall pace of life has increased. We are paying for it mentally, emotionally, and physically.
Time management is a buzzword for all of us who struggle with procrastination. And while a certain level of stress and anxiety is healthy and productive, too much stress and anxiety, when chronic, will wear you down, impacting all areas of your life.
More Than A Time Management Tool!
The Pomodoro Technique is more than time management tips, study tips, or traditional work productivity. This technique taps into how our human mind works, how we focus, how we are meant to tend to tasks, how to be productive, and how to destroy procrastination habits, improve productivity, and decrease our anxiety and stress levels a notch or TWO.
What Is The Pomodoro Technique?
The Pomodoro Technique is a time management method developed by Francesco Cirillo in 1987. It breaks up tasks into bite-sized intervals, with each interval fittingly known as a Pomodoro.
The Pomodoro Technique encourages you to work with the time you have, rather than against it, by prioritizing time-boxing, emphasizing a sustainable pace, and offering ample opportunity to inspect and adapt your style and approach.
We can only tackle and focus on one thing simultaneously, as the human brain is not designed for multitasking. So, the fact that we try to do it all of the time is unproductive and causes additional stress and anxiety. The Pomodoro Technique helps to reframe the day. It turns time into a predictable succession of contained events rather than a chaotic and random battlefield. The results can be hugely rewarding.
How Does The Pomodoro Technique Help With Anxiety?
Anxiety is often a condition of unmet expectations of all the things you have not done but should have done. Stressed about how you can be a better person, employee, parent, spouse, etc. Then the anxiety builds because you feel like you can't solve your problem or catch up with life because you can’t do it all. Then, you find yourself overwhelmed and getting nothing done.
The Pomodoro Technique helps because it is a very simple way to organize your thinking, so you don't become overwhelmed with anxiety, but instead, move forward toward something.
Even if 25 minutes is not enough time for you to finish the entire project, in 25 minutes, you can make significant and palpable headway. You know you have done something with those 25 minutes, which reduces the anxiety because you feel like you're moving closer to your expectations and goals.
It's a great tool to reduce anxiety and get more done, as it helps us manage stress and anxiety, energy, and time.
How It Works
Step 1 – Specify and choose a task and commit to working solely on that task for the next 25 minutes. Set the alarm for 25 minutes.
If you say, "I will work for 25 minutes," and not specific with the task you choose to focus on, it will make the mind feel disorganized because there are so many ways you can be pulled.
I encourage you to put your phone away, log out of social media, shut down your email, etc. Each uninterrupted 25-minute block of task time = 1 Pomodoro.
Step 2 – At the end of the 25 minutes, mark your task as complete and take a 5-minute break when the timer rings. Take a real break, though. Step away from the computer and do something to reset yourself. Stretch, step outside into the sunshine, do a short meditation or breathing technique, love on your pet, or fix yourself a nice cup of tea.
Step 3 – Get ready to begin the next Pomodoro. Choose another task or continue with part 2 of the first task for another 25 minutes. Set your timer to 25 and focus on that task. At the end of the 25 minutes, mark your task as complete.
Step 4 -Take another five-minute break (a real break.) Step away from the task.
Step 5 – For every four 25-Minute, Pomodoro sessions + Breaks, take a more extended break of at least 20-30 minutes.
Our work styles will vary. For me, though, when I start my 25-minute Pomodoro session, I set boundaries with myself, and do not check my emails, phone, social media, news, etc. It is like brain training; it helps me stay focused and sets me up for success. I love to see progress in my day!
Give it a try! Let me know how it works for you.
I created a Pomodoro Session Planner for YOU! Click on the link below.