 We all have the desire to live a life based around relaxation and low stress, simultaneously wishing to be accomplished and reach our full potential. Each road demands a wildly different personal discipline. The former is comprised of slow contemplation and flexibility, while the latter requires laser sharp focus, hard work and intensive planning. How can you get these two contradictory paths to work together when undertaking one seems to cancel the other out? Lately I have begun to realize that nurturing the abilities to skillfully juggle a life filled with deadlines and responsibility is probably the single most important thing that can be done to begin feeling balanced. In light of this realization, I have been looking for any method out there that can help me in my quest.
My favorite find up to this point is called the Pomodoro Method. There are many detailed aspects involved, but even when stripped down to a simple form, it is a powerful and intuitive tool. A timer and a list of tasks to be accomplished are the only materials you need. The name pomdoro itself is Italian for tomato, named after the shape of the first kitchen timer used to create this solution. What pure simplicity and personality! In a raw stripped down form, the way I understand, it goes something like this...
Step One:
Find the first task on the list.
Step Two:
Set the timer to 25 minutes and focus only on what you are doing, no distraction.
When you shed away the stress of everyday worries and what looms ahead, you begin to see large daunting tasks as close friends that can be worked out in little achievable portions. We quickly forget how much we hold in our minds and and how much anxiety and murkiness that comes bound along with all of it. How can we accomplish anything worthwhile without really being able to focus intently on what we are trying to say and why we are saying it? When using Pomodoro one accurately focuses when necessary and is free to let the mind wander when necessary without letting the guilt of this unlimited list of things to do weigh on the moment and obscure your focus. You don't have to finish the task in 25 minutes, you just give it an undivided audience for a reasonable amount of time. After spending a couple pomodoros on larger tasks they become compartmentalized and seem much simpler to achieve. Unlike barreling head-on into your work, this subtle practice builds a framework and strategies begin to emerge with time.
Hopefully with a bit of tweaking the Pomodoro method will prove to be extremely valuable here in the call center at Scitent, a place where handling projects and over arching ideas coincide with constant distraction and more direct responsibilities which grab attention from here to there. The pomodoro method should prove an excellent way of being able to organize time, section it off to different tasks and keep track of what is actually being accomplished. I also have the added bonus of working in the office with software developing and programmer types who are most likely professionals at implementing these tactics. Hope even more rubs off on me. They are the masters of this type of task oriented time management, I am but their young student.
The Pomodoro Technique |
