So, lately I have taken on a lot of new responsibilities and have been a little daunted by my "to-do" list. When I get daunted I tend to put the bigger things off until tomorrow -- over and over and over.
Then I remembered a book that I read a few years ago called the Pomodoro Technique by Francesco Cirillo.
He made it as simple as possible. The word pomodoro means "tomato" in Italian. Francesco, the author, had a little kitchen timer that looked like a tomato and he used it to reshape his life.
We tend to look at our "to do" list and get overwhelmed which leads to procrastination. The longer the list of unfinished tasks gets, the more overwhelmed we get, then we procrastinate ---- and on it goes, day after day.
How did the tomato timer fix that? Francesco set the timer for twenty-five minutes and just worked on the first task for that twenty-five minutes. He took a break and did twenty-five minutes again.
A mountain of work is too daunting to tackle, but twenty-five minutes is completely manageable. After you do twenty-five-minute intervals of work a few times, your mountain of work is done.
I had to remind myself of that --I had forgotten and found myself procrastinating. I looked busy, but I was getting nothing done. So, yesterday, with the pomodoro technique in mind, I set a timer and did only one task while the timer was counting down. Then I reset the timer with breaks in between throughout the day. I got more done yesterday than I did all last week.
I do love a simple solution to an overwhelming problem. Don't you?
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*Daniella Bozzone is a mindset and habit writer and private investor.
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