Thinking in Pomodoros

Last week (week from 24th May - 31st May) has turned out to be the most productive week in my life. Not that I have cut down on my side gigs or changed my priorities, but a simple addition of an age old technique called Pomodoro has changed the way I have started to think about time. Here’s how I see the difference :

The Old Me

Let me list down what I am supposed to do today and complete today’s To - Dos. I’ll go through the list one by one and then reward myself at the end of the day with an episode of “House of Lies” or reply to some of my Whatsapp messages. But there is something inherently evil with this strategy which is “not defining your stop losses”. As soon as I find my flow in one of the activities in my To - Do list, I lose track of time and can only complete ~ 50% of the assigned tasks on any given day.

The New Me

Defining the activities on and outside my To - Do list as Pomodoros.

1. Grocery Shopping - 1 Pomodoro
2. Reading Books - 5 Pomodoros
3. Having a chat with my family : 1 Pomodoro
4. Office Work : 22 Pomodoros
5. Interacting with my family and friends over the weekend : 2 Pomodoros

Not only has thinking in Pomodoros made me more productive, but also helped me do a lot more work in a lot less time. The reason for this is as follows:

1. 25 mins of focussed attention that makes me much more productive as compared to dragging things for hours with decreasing productivity. This leads to nothing, but an increased production of Adenosine in my body.
2. Doing more activities and putting a hard stop to a particular activity after completing the assigned Pomodoros.
3. Taking 7 minute breaks in which I practice playing Harmonica (Well, it makes me feel relaxed and obsess over my Harmonica tunes)