Being an occasional procrastinator I sometimes rely on deadlines to motivate me in doing my tasks. This sometimes leads me to do things that I usually wouldn’t prefer, for instance: submitting poor quality assignments or projects.
One day, I came across this reward based technique where I would take regular breaks in my work and reward myself with something after focusing for a short period of time. I implemented it and the results were a huge success. Smart work in this way was much more suitable to my liking. Then I heard of the Pomodoro Technique of managing time. Where I have to set 25 minutes timer and shut all the distractions during that time to only focus on my work. After 5 minutes I am supposed to take a break of a few minutes and then again start my work for 25 more minutes. I understand that the distraction can get more than just a few minutes sometimes but in a nutshell it worked really good for me as I was able to do a lot of work in just 25 minutes.
I would recommend the readers of this blog to give a try to this technique. You just have to set the Pomodoro timer (alarm) to 25 minutes and start working with zero distractions. If any distraction or thought comes to your mind, don’t stop! Just note it down and keep working. After the timer tings, put a star (or a tick) on a piece of paper. Give yourself a few minutes of break after that and then restart the timer to work for another 25 minutes. Repeat this process until you have 4–5 stars/ticks on the piece of paper after which you can start taking longer breaks in between. It certainly helped me and I am sure it will help you too if you try it.
