Getting it done ...

This weekend, I'm stuck inside my little island cottage frantically writing my uni assignments.  My plan is to have the first assignment completely finished and the reading/drafting of my second one well underway.  It is often easy to get distracted, with a pile of good books waiting to be read, the weekend newspapers lying around, a dog wanting to be cuddled and so much useless-but-fun stuff to look at on the internet.  Introduce the Pomodoro Technique.  I've used this technique for years without knowing the actual name of it - I've always just called it 'A Way to Stop Procrastinating and Get Things Done.'  I came across the actual name on the lovely Sarah Wilson's blog a few months ago.  The Pomodoro is the name of the kitch looking tomato timer.  The process is quite simple actually ... You set a timer (I normally go for 30 minutes), work on your task with full concentration until the timer goes off and then take a short break (they recommend 5 minutes, I normally go for 10).  Then you repeat the cycle.  After 4 rounds, you take a longer break.  I normally use the short break to get up and move around - I make a cup of tea, do the dishes, play with the dog, walk to the end of the island and back, anything to get my blood pumping.  And it works.  Instead of sitting for an hour and doing a bit of work whilst darting from screen to screen, I uni-task for 30 minutes and manage to achieve quite a lot.  In fact, focusing on one task helps me to get into a state of 'flow' more easily, whereby I'm fully absorbed in what I'm doing and don't really want to stop after 30 minutes (it also means that my assignments are way over the word limit because I get so into it that I just keep on writing and writing).  So, after a day of using the Pomodoro Technique yesterday, my first assignment is almost completely done and lots of reading has been done for my second.  Well, that's my 30 minutes up ... time for a tea break.