Sometimes we just can’t seem to get the work done or even want to do it. Here at Insider Product Reviews, we feel the same. One of the many ways the “ pandemic brain” – yes, a real thing – has directly impacted us is through brain fog, depression, fatigue and of course, lower productivity. The global COVID-19 crisis and its surrounding uncertainties are still affecting us in so many ways. Plan time for yourself during each day and see how it affects your attitude at work.The past few years have been hard on us. Go for walks, read a book, cook a nice tomato soup 🍅. My only advice to those of you who want to give it a try: Take the time to find the right Pomodoro lengths for you, and ditch the screens at break time. I might not be as strict (sometimes I get inspired and enjoy working on an idea for 4 hours straight), but I can definitely see it as an invaluable tool to prevent burnout. But on a week where I might have felt scrambled and stressed, I felt surprisingly zen. So I didn’t become a productivity robot, pumping out stacks of articles every day. Short breaks away from the laptop to do yoga or reading during the day are super enjoyable The key takeaways I got from using the Pomodoro writing method were:Ĭoncentrating on one task at a time really does help you to stay focusedĬonsciously planning and working on your tasks will make you feel more accomplished at the end of the week I didn’t struggle to recall what I had accomplished that week, every task had been consciously planned and completed. I’m not usually a clock watcher, but I was surprised how quickly the end of the week came. But instead, I was entirely aware of each task and when it was finished, and I had completed everything while managing to take more time for myself. The old me would have thought I’d spent the week “slacking off”.

I had spent a lot less time sitting in front of the computer, and I had spent a lot more time doing grounding activities like yoga and reading.

The key difference was how I felt on Friday afternoon. So the tasks laid out for me each week get completed one way or another before the due date. The amount of work I completed was the same as any other week. So, after 5 days of experimenting with different Pomodoro planners, was I more productive?

I was able to focus on my tasks and looked forward to fully disconnecting from my laptop on my breaks. SaraBethYoga offers a variety of practices varying in length and intensity.įollowing a soft 10-30 minute stretch sequence during my breaks allowed me to get my body moving without getting too sweaty.Ĭustom pomodoros paired with conscious breaks was the winning combination for me. So on Thursday and Friday, I spent my breaks reading on my kindle or following a yoga practice on YouTube. I also spent these two days paying attention to how I was spending my breaks.Įarlier in the week, I had found that just switching over to Facebook or reaching for my phone didn’t allow me to fully disconnect during my breaks. On Thursday and Friday, I went back to my trusty custom Pomofocus settings (50, 10, 30), and was able to easily enter into a comfortable flow. But I still struggled with short pomodoros and found myself working through the breaks. The music was really pleasant and created a nice ambiance for work sessions. The episode I heard played 30 minutes of music designed to encourage focus, separated by 5-minute breaks made up of binaural sound waves. When I was explaining my experiment to a friend, they recommended I check out the Flow State podcast on Spotify. By Wednesday, I was finally comfortable flowing in and out of frequent breaks and decided to try a very 21st-century approach to the Pomodoro writing method: A podcast.

Tomato timer 25 minute