WATCHING THE TIME: One small tweak to my workday has made me 50% more productive Photo by Han Chau on Unsplash
Remember when the word ‘hack’ was everywhere? Life hacks, productivity hacks, happiness hacks. That one irritating word makes me want to hack myself to death.
So now I’m in a quandary. Because I have a productivity tip that I want to share – and the SEO devil on my shoulder wants me to call it a hack.
This is NOT a productivity hack
Like most freelancers, I regularly jump on the latest trick or tip to help me get more done in less time. But habits are notoriously hard to change (ask my nose-picking children).
This time I’ve found something that genuinely works for me – the Pomodoro Technique.
Like Madonna and Orville, this has been around since the 80s. While I am late to the party here, applying it to my working day has made a huge difference.
If you didn’t already know, the Pomodoro Technique is a time management method where you work in a focused way for 25 minutes – and then take a five-minute break.
Initially, putting your feet up every 25 minutes seems counter-intuitive as a productivity hack – sorry tip. But the results have been great.
Because my brain knows I’m giving it a small reward in 25 minutes, I power through distractions and stay focused for the full period. It’s amazing how much I can do in that time.
Before I took the Pomodoro plunge, my most productive period was always the final hour before the school run. I’d set myself an impossible target to achieve before I left the house, and it really got the fires burning.
Now, I get that productivity burst every 25 minutes.
As I move towards the last 10 minutes of each 25-minute period, my brain has that same impulse to prove how much it can do before deadline. So instead of having one burst of rapid work a day, I’m having 15 or so.
While the following example is a pretty minuscule sample size, it’s still interesting. Basically, I write very in-depth customer case studies for one of my clients. These conversion-focused pieces top out at around 1,600 words and involve sifting through interview transcriptions, company and customer briefs, and doing lots of deep thinking.
If I get distracted, a single study can easily take the best part of two days. BUT, using the Pomodoro Technique – (call it the Commodoro technique if you’re a child of the 80s or the Momodoro technique if you need to remember to pick up the kids) – I’m now spending just 8 hours on these difficult studies.
Even under the most conservative estimate, that’s at least a 50% time reduction. Meaning those particular projects are now 50% more profitable!
It’s been a big win for me. Why not try it yourself and let me know how it works for you?