This week, I've been learning…
How effective the Pomodoro process really is !

In case you haven't heard of it, the Pomodoro process (that's tomato in italian) has you working on a single task for 25 minutes, then doing something else for 5, repeating that 3 times before taking a longer break, and so on. I think I first came across it 15 years ago.

I tried it but found that I always worked straight through the break! While time boxing a task into blocks of 25 minutes was really helpful, all in all , the results were unremarkable. Until this week, when it all changed.

Quick context here: I've been working with a personal trainer for a few months, and after setting a new deadlifting PB this week, I realised that I needed to keep moving for the rest of the day to avoid being too sore. And that's when I had a brilliant (hey - I'm easily pleased!) idea - set a 25 minute timer on my phone and put it out of reach of my desk, so I'd have to get up.

I set an intention of doing 5 minutes of stretching whenever I got out of the chair, and then repeating the whole process for the rest of the day.

Result? I tore through my planned actions for the day and felt great when I stopped working. Oh, and I did a total of 50 sit-ups and hung from a pull-up bar for 3 minutes, with no back pain the following day.

Conclusion: The Pomodoro process does work. But the timer has to be out of reach.

Try it - and let me know how you get on.