This simple and effective technique for staying focused and being productive while staying refreshed has helped many people get things done, including me. I am going to break down the technique into it’s core components and help you understand how to apply it effectively.

While this method is not for everybody, I recommend reading on to see if its the right fit for you. Now before diving into what the technique is and how it works, here are the main benefits of this technique.

Benefits

• It’s easy
• It’s free
• Increased productivity
• Maximised effectiveness and efficiency during your work time
• Increased self-discipline
• Reward based system making work enjoyable
• Adaptable to your needs
• Sustainable over long periods of time

What you’ll need

• A timer

You need a timer. That’s it. Use the one on your watch, the one in your kitchen or your computer (here’s a free timer you can use). I strongly advise against using your phone as a timer due to the distractions it can cause. It is better to use something that is meant only for the purpose of tracking time.

The Principle

• Set timer for 25 min of work
• Keep out distractions
• Mark your session with an X on a sheet of paper upon completion
• Take a 5 min break to refresh and recharge
• Repeat the above instructions
• After 4 iterations take a longer break 15 – 30 minutes

A pomodoro is an indivisible 25-minute work period. It’s named after the Italian word for tomato, because Francesco Cirillo used a kitchen timer in the shape of a tomato when he came up with this concept.

Basically, you work 25 min, have a 5 min break and at the end of 4 work sessions you get a 15 minute refreshing break.

Now that you have a feel for the idea lets get into some detail. We’ll go over the importance of planning your work, protecting it, focusing on it, and recording it. Then we’ll see some of the variations you can use.

Before beginning your session you must prepare your environment with proper planning.

Plan

So you want to work. Very good. What are you going to work on? How much time is it going to take? Prioritise your tasks. If you have a to-do list, determine the most important tasks and estimate the time it will take to accomplish them.  You can only eat an elephant one bite at a time. The same applies to your tasks, you must take them one step at a time and break down difficult tasks into smaller more manageable ones. Once you have small mangeable tasks, you must estimate how much time it will take you to complete the individual tasks. If the task is over 4 pomodoros long, break it down into smaller parts. This will help increase your productivity because you get a real sense of time.

Once you have planned your work you must protect your work time.

Protect

During your pomodoro you must cut out all distractions, to create a favorable working environment. Turn off you phone or put it in silent mode and in a place where you can’t access it easily. If you’re working on your computer exit all distracting sites (Social media, instant messaging, email, your web browser if you aren’t using it) If you have a hard time keeping away from such sites there are many online ressources for that purpose.

If you have a distracting thought that comes up, write it down to get it out of your head. Then get back to what you were doing. Every time you have an impulse to procrastinate, make a note of it. As you do this you will find that the number of distractions that arise decrease. This is a very effective way of staying concentrated as writing your thoughts down allows you to forget these thoughts – instead of keeping them in your head and being constantly distracted – while being sure you can come back to them if need be once you are done with your work.

If you are in a work environnement with other people you will have to develop strategies to put off unimportant tasks and distractions. Keep in mind that a pomodoro is an indivisible amount of time. If you stop before the timer goes off, you don’t put an X on your tracking sheet. This can be frustrating because because you don’t validate your session and you loose your concentration. You will be interrupted, and occasionally you will have to deal with it right away. However you will find that interruptions are rarely urgent and important, and that you can very often deal with the interruption very effectively.

Ok now that you understand that you must proctect your pomodoro and have a couple ways of doing so, lets see how you go about implementing the principle.

Focus

During your work time you must focus on one task and one task only. This is very important point. The main idea behind the Pomodoro Technique is that you are maximizing your work time by being as effective as possible. So you concentrate on the one task you have given yourself and you do it. You continue until you either finish the task at hand or you hear the end of your session. If you complete your task. Move on to the next one you planned and don’t bother looking at the time that is left. Just keep working until the timer goes off.

DRRRIIIINNNNNGGGGGGG !

Times up! Stooooop! Put down your pen, book, notes, remove your hands from your keyboard, step away from the work. I repeat, step away from the work, yeah thats rights, gently, put your hand behind your head and move away calmly, if you touch the work you will be shot. No just kidding you won’t be shot. But you had better act as if you were. It is best if you actually get up and change your location, thus creating a clearer division between work and rest. This is key!

During your break you must absolutely stop working! This is very important. You do not finish that little thing that you just have to do. Yeah, but it only takes 1 minute. No ! You stop ! times up ! Nada ! I’ve been there. It’s not fun. But you have to stop. This is were this strengthens your self-discipline. Think about it, could you have been more effective on your pomodoro to complete that 1-minute task? On your next pomodoro keep that in mind and try to get as much done as possible in those 25 minutes. It’s now time for your reward: the 5 min break. Set the timer to 5 min and off you go! Oh and congratulate yourself because you just worked 25 minutes straight without interruption and if there were interruptions you dealt with them effectively.

You must do something for five minutes that has nothing at all to do with work. Personally I would solve my rubix’s cube a couple times, or watch a video on Youtube, or do a couple chores around my place. You would be surprised at the amount of stuff you can do in 5 min intervals. To watch a 30 min video it only takes you 4 pomodoro sessions to view during your pause. (5 + 5+ 5 +15 = 30)

You can actually get a lot done during those 5 min breaks. But it must not be work related and it’s better if it’s fun for you. What’s the point of a reward if you don’t like it. Have a snack. Exercise a little. Do something you enjoy.

Once the timer rings, it’s time to stop what your doing and start another pomodoro. You must be strict with your time. It forces you to grow and improve. To further improve it is important to record your progress.

Record

Keep track of how much work you do. Every time you complete a pomodoro, make note of it, mark a pomodoro with an X or a line or anything you want. Also I recommend putting the date so you can review your progress later and compare it with certain events. Here’s a list of what my pomodoro count looked like when I was studying for an exam.

Keeping a record also gives you a sense of accomplishment because you know exactly how much you worked. It helps with self-observations and future improvement.

You are better able to assess the amount of work you do and you can review what days are good ones and what days are bad. It helps you better assess the time it takes to complete specific tasks. It will help you plan your future pomodoro sessions.

For instance in the above photo the red lines separate the different weeks you can clearly see that the first days weren’t very productive but that as the days went by I was able to work more. You can also see the relative regularity of the number of pomodoros you can have in a day. Not every day will be the same. You can clearly see that around the 12th of the month I worked a lot less than the previous week.

Adapt freely

Keep in mind that this is simply a productivity method. It is flexible to your needs. Feel free to change and play with the different time intervals. After about 5 months of daily pomodoro sessions I began to feel I could concentrate easily for 25 minutes so I decided to move to 30-minute sessions then 50-minute sessions with 10-minute pauses. I found that best suited my need. Keep in mind that I only increased the amount after I was comfortable enough with 25 minutes of concentration. You can do 3 sessions instead of 4 before your big pause. This you can adapt according to your needs.

Also, in the above sections I was quite strict about stopping when the timer goes off. If you really want to do the thing that only takes one more minute to do you can. I know I certainly did occasionally. When you stop what you are doing and force yourself to stop it strengthens your discipline. Constant timing minimizes procrastination and keeps you accountable for your work. If your in the “flow” though, you can keep going. In that case it is quite possible that 25 minutes is too short for you and that a longer pomodoro is probably what you need. This method isn’t for everybody. You can try it out, it’s free and you already have everything you need to get started. If you don’t like it, thats fine, you can always go back to what you were doing before.

If you would like additional information on the technique you can visit the official site. You can get as much information as you want, but at the end of the day the only way you will truly know if it’s a good fit is when you try it and see for yourself.