No, it’s not taking a two hour Siesta every afternoon. (Sorry.)

I would love to tell you that taking two hours at work, every day, to have a nap will improve your productivity and enhance your career! The sad reality is that this doesn’t go down very well in our culture.

What I can tell you about is the Pomodoro Technique – something I have found to be surprisingly effective in increasing my productivity. First socialised in the early 1990’s by Francesco Cirillo, the Pomodoro Technique is effectively like interval training. You throw yourself into a 25 minute burst of high productivity, then take a five minute break. Rinse and repeat.

I’ve experienced several unexpected benefits practicing this technique:

• Often, when having the five minute break, solutions will pop into my head for the task I’m working on.
• Surprisingly, I find myself racing to finish tasks before the 25 minutes are up, which provides sustained productivity throughout the day.
• It allows me to move around every 30 minutes, so I don’t become a desk sloth.

Overall, I find it keeps me focused and on track for the whole day. Because I know I’m on the clock, I’m less likely to get distracted by unimportant tasks. Before I started using this technique, I had the whole day stretched ahead of me and I was more likely to browse LinkedIn, fluff through emails, check Facebook, and the like. Now, I think “I can’t afford to waste any of my 25 minutes.”

The Pomodoro Technique in practice

The Pomodoro Technique works best in certain work environments. In an open plan office, with constant interruptions, I’ve found it doesn’t work to its full potential. If you can work in a quiet place with few distractions, Pomodoro helps you get in the zone and start banging out tasks.

It’s really important to honour the Pomodoro system if you want it to be effective for you. When I first started, I found I would ignore the timer, working through to finish whatever task I was working on. This meant I was working through my break most of the time and I was less likely to tackle the next 25 minutes with energy and focus. Essentially, I was unconsciously telling myself it is okay to ignore the system – as soon as you do this you lose the benefits of the system!

When it’s time to take your break, take it! When it’s time to go back to work, throw yourself into your work. As soon as I started sticking to the system, I got a lot more benefit out it.

Implementing the Pomodoro Technique

There are a myriad of apps, websites, and browser plugins that can help you integrate the Pomodoro Technique into your workstyle. I personally use Tomato One: it’s free and, helpfully, it comes to the front of your screen at the end of each work cycle. I often lose myself in what I’m doing and this feature grabs my attention, so I can stop and take my break.

In my experience, most of the Pomodoro apps are pretty similar, so don’t waste your time trying them all. Do some quick research, download one, and see if it works for you.

If you try it out, I’d love to know how you get on. Please comment here or send me a note with your thoughts. Happy Productivity!