I Overcame Procrastination by Doing This Secret Technique (Updated)

Procrastination really s*cks especially if you have a lot of things to do. If you are one of these people, then this blog is probably helpful.

This week is quite tough for me as a student, for your information, we had a lot of activities in the past two weeks and I still have more 6 activities next week.

I need to finish it all because it is really tough if we will have a lot of things to do in plates and we might end up in cramming.

Despite of finishing more or less 10 activities last week, I was still slow! Why? It is because of procrastination. When I am reading the PDFs sent by our professor, social medias are seducing me and saying “Visit us” so I can't finish the things that I need to do.

BUT thanks to Pomodoro technique! I overcame the most annoying enemy of most of the people, procrastination.

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What is Pomodoro Technique?

This technique was developed in the late 1980’s by one student named Francesco Cirillo. He was having a hard time to study so he tried to divide his works and set up a time then Pomodoro technique was born.

Fun fact: Pomodoro is an Italian word which means tomato.

Source of the image.

How Pomodoro Technique Works?

This technique is very simple to use, by simply doing this, you can be productive everyday without procrastination.

• First, list all the task that you need to do. Even it is for your whole day task, the more the better. List all of the possible things including the small and big activities that you need to do. Examples are going to grocery store, working out, cooking foods, review, read your books and more!

• Next, set up a 25-minute timer. This timer should ring when the time is done to inform and notify you.

• Work on your chosen task, depends on your preference if what are the things that you need to do. The most important is to finish them all in your desired time.

• When the time is up and start ringing, you deserve a reward! You can rest in 5 minutes. Remember, control yourself. Don't abuse the time because it is gold!

• Repeat it from the top. 1. Set up a 25-minute timer, 2. work on your task, 3. then rest for 5 minutes.

Important Note: After doing 4 sessions of Pomodoro or after 4 times of 25 minutes of work, you can rest for a longer break from 15 to 30 minutes to avoid mental abuse and over fatigue.

If 25 minutes is much longer on your task, you can combine small tasks to spend your 25 minutes in a productive way. Examples are making an outline for your blog, check your email, call for a friend and more.

These small tasks can be combined in one session of Pomodoro to lessen your tasks and to avoid procrastination in your excess time.

On the other hand, if your task will eat more than 4 sessions of Pomodoro, then this task should be divided into smaller task to manage your time and finish it successfully.

What if there is an interruption in the middle of your Pomodoro session?

If there is an interruption in your 25-minute session, you can start the timer from 25 minutes again and take your 5-minute break in advance. Please make a note or list the possible interruption and think of a way to overcome it.

In my personal opinion, this technique really works.

In fact, I am writing this blog while doing Pomodoro. As of writing, I still have 6 minutes to finish my first session of Pomodoro then I will take a 5-minute break after this session and start again from 25 minutes.

Screenshot by the author.

This is my actual set up of Pomodoro, the first timer is currently counting down. It is my 25-minute timer, the second one is my 5-minute break and the last one is my longer break. I usually edit it from 20-30 minutes.

The 5-minute break on each session really helps a lot to avoid mental abuse and over fatigue. In my personal experience, since my subjects are mostly Mathematics, my head is quite aching in computing Math problems. But because of Pomodoro technique, this headache is fading away by means of taking a 5-minute rest after the 25-minute of work.

Meanwhile, the longer breaks can help our brain to make us balance in both work and rest. A 30-minute break is important after the 4 Pomodoro session to keep the mental health balance.

Conclusion

If you will read a lot of comments and blogs about Pomodoro, you will read a lot of positive feedbacks from them on how it is effective and life-changing.

In my point of view, this is literally life-changing once you learned how to master and manage your time correctly. This old saying “Time is gold” is undeniably true and no time should be wasted.

This technique is effective for me, but it is always depend on the person. There are people who probably have more ways to overcome procrastination and keep their productivity every day. It is a matter of beliefs after all.

Source:

• https://todoist.com/productivity-methods/pomodoro-technique

Published: August 13, 2021
Update: March 17, 2022