The best way not to give in to distractions is… program them! The tomato technique allows you to organize your work and study time by allowing short and fruitful breaks.
The tomato technique was devised at the end of the 1980s by the entrepreneur Francesco Cirillo and soon became one of the most widespread and used techniques in time management .
Forget about apps or sophisticated technological tools, all you need – to stop procrastinating and stay focused – is an old kitchen timer …
The tomato technique: how it works
We all have one (who doesn’t have it, run to get it): the “traditional” kitchen timer – usually, in fact, in the shape of a tomato – which for decades has been the undisputed protagonist for monitoring the cooking times of our dishes.
Well, this very essentiality still makes it the best tool for managing study or work time because it allows you to temporarily put aside any possible distraction, including those coming from our sophisticated smartphones (despite their integrated timer)! The method itself is very simple:
- set the timer for a 25-minute sessionduring which you will commit to keeping your concentration exclusively on what you are doing (any other request or distraction must be postponed to breaks or work completed);
- at the end of the time, program a break of 5 minutes
- reschedule the timer for another 25 minutes giving yourself a 15 minute break for every 4completed sessions .
Each study or work activity will naturally require a different number of “tomatoes” : try to plan them in advance, you will also train yourself to correctly estimate the time you actually need to complete a certain activity.
The tomato technique: via the smartphone
The tomato technique is very useful especially considering how many times you allow yourself to be interrupted by notifications arriving on your smartphones .
It may seem completely obvious, it is now done automatically, but you do not realize that, in this way, during a study or work session you are continually distracted from what you are doing (you read a message, yes replies to an email or a phone call and maybe even takes a look at Facebook …): the mind is so used to receiving “requests for attention” from various devices that it remains in a constant state of “waiting” which risks damaging the attention , not to mention the time it takes later to regain concentration .
Wanting to revisit the tomato technique today, we could therefore say that the first rule is: via the smartphone (possibly also from sight), via the web pages not related to the activity that is taking place (including mail and social networks). All these technological “appendages” can wait, it is not a question of renouncing them a priori, but only of putting them temporarily – at least for 25 minutes – on standby …
The tomato technique: nothing is really urgent
If you are using the tomato technique for the first time and you find it hard to maintain concentration without distracting yourself, at the beginning an entire 25-minute session may seem very long: don’t give up, any distraction or “urgency” (which is not always synonymous of importance) comes to mind, you can deal with it later during the breaks that you will always program with your somewhat “vintage” timer …
This mode is very useful because it helps to resolve an otherwise irremediable conflict: between the need to focus on a study or work objective and the “urgency” of having to fulfill a request or control the smartphone that could hardly be done by now. less without feeling “cut off” from the world.
With Tomato technique not excluding email, messaging and social networks from your everyday life, but you strive to schedule when and how to consult them, not leave it to their notifications to interrupt your work: you who decides how to use the technology not let yourself be used by it!
The tomato technique: the breaks
Of course, for the tomato technique to be successful, it is also useful to learn how to make good use of the breaks …
We said that in part these breaks are time reservoirs in which you will be able to listen to a series of requests and notifications received during work sessions. But not only … Body and mind work in synergy and therefore, even when carrying out a purely intellectual activity, it is good to take both into account.
Especially those who carry out sedentary work , always at the PC, and perhaps from home – smart working can have strengths and weaknesses – particularly need to “reactivate” the body from time to time avoiding the accumulation of postural tensions and stresses that, with a prolonged inactivity can lead to serious problems in the long run.
It is not just a matter of carving out a daily or weekly space to play sports , but, more importantly, of guaranteeing the body the possibility of moving regularly during a day of study or work. The breaks can therefore also be used to do small stretching or relaxation exercises , carry out small household chores that require you to get up from your desk and walk or maybe go outside.
For the lazy ones, it will be enough to start with a simple expedient: put the timer away from you so that you will be forced to at least get up at the beginning and at the end of each session.
The tomato technique: advanced level
If at first a 25-minute session might seem very long, continuing to use the Pomodoro technique you will most likely see that it will no longer be the case and you will hear the timer ring while you are at your peak concentration. However, as counterintuitive as it may seem, it will still be very useful to force yourself to respect the times without arbitrarily lengthening the work session. Otherwise, in the long run, there would be the risk of losing concentration because there is no longer a defined time limit and one is not benefiting from the regenerating power of the pause with the risk of prolonging the activity in an unproductive or in any case less fruitful way.
If you realize that you have become “champions” and that you can maintain your concentration even longer than the canonical 25 minutes, it might be more advantageous to change technique: the so-called “Melon technique” is, in a certain sense, an “upgrade. ”Of the Pomodoro technique, is based on 90-minute sessions but still provides for the programming of breaks – of 15 or 30 minutes – in short, nothing, even here – is left to chance!
