A 5 minute break after every 25 minutes work - wait, what?

Last night I joined in one the 6th episode of How to Business Surf?, a Clubhouse series where (mainly) entrepreneurs that are involved with surfing share their opinion and experiences on several topics. Amaury Stroobant from Wavemate - the initiator of these talks - invited me to join in on this talk after having joined the pannel too during a previous talk on Entrepreneurship. For the ones that remember, I wasn't very happy about my input back then. I was fairly satisfied with my contribution to last night's episode on Mind Management.

Note: I've got this article published on my website, including an additional video on how to use the Pomodoro Technique even better.

However, I wouldn't be myself if not pointing out where I'd see room for improvement. The experiences I shared in regards to Mind Management were valuable - I believe - but the storytelling aspect of my speech wasn't too fluent. I guess this is a matter of not discussing the topic often enough so that's something I will try to increase. Last year I gained a lot of knowledge and experience in Mind Manangement so in case you would even like to check-in with me on the topic, do not hestitate to send me a message.

Last night's episode:

Pascal, one of the fellow speakers, mentioned the model where you will be working 25 minutes with a 5 minute break afterwards. This actually is a model which I use on a daily basis. I felt very motivated to share my experiences on using this model (called the Pomodoro Technique) but as the hour was over in no-time I chose to be focussing on other topics and share my experiences through an Article on LinkedIn.

The talk on Mind Management was highly insightful to me. My own preparations made it very interesting already and it felt good to realise (again) that it's very important (at least to me) to have a well structured mind. This is something I have been working on a lot this year, especially as my online travel company SurfaWhile wasn't really overloading me with work due to the pandemic.

To me mind management is all about structure. Having a structured mind allows you to divide your energy and mental capacity among the things that really matter to you. And the Pomodoro Technique helps me in achieving just that. But what is it and how does it work?

I'll happily share some of my best practises.

THE POMODORO TECHNIQUE

This is a rather easy way of working and it's very structured. You will work 6 or 8 blocks of 25 minutes, after which you take a 5 minute break. This means that in 180 or 240 minutes, you will be taking a break for 30 or 40 minutes respectively. After these 6 of 8 blocks, there's a longer break (30 - 60 minutes). The trick is to use one block to focus on one sole topic or task. It can happen that you plan 2, 3 or 4 blocks back to back to be working on the same topic but you will still take the 5-minute break, every time.

My tips, tricks and best practices:

I have started adopting this way of working a couple of years ago and it has just provided me with a lot. To me there are a couple of main advantages which this structure gives me.

• As I try to start my day by drawing up my schedule, it makes me actively think about what I will do during the day. I can force myself to also include some of the long-term to-do's that are on my list
• The fact that I'm 'forced' to work 25 minutes on one topic only creates an amazing focus (it's important that you really stick to this topic)
• Distractions such as news, phone, social media etc. will have to wait until the 25 minutes are over. To me it's much easier to ignore those distractions as I know that I will be 'allowed' to check upon whatever in the 5-minute break (which always will be coming up soon)
• I can use the breaks to get up from my chair, walk (within the house) and focus my eye-sight on some places in the distance (I'm regularly looking through the window). Having a constant focus on the screen that's just in front of you is not very good to your eyes.
• The way I structured my task into blocks of 25 minutes increased my efficiency in several ways. For some tasks I just knew that there would be a maximum time I could dedicate to it and this made my fingers fly across my keyboard. Obviously, when a task just wasn't finished, I would make sure to finish it the next block or at a later moment. A task that's almost done never has been a reason not to honour my 5-minute break (consistency is key, from my experience).
• What I really like too (to many the 9 to 5 mentality won't be as stricts as it used to be) is that I often include personal to-do's into my schedule too. The structure or schedule could apply for the entire day, that doesn't stop at 17:00. When starting at 08:30 I sometimes plan until 20:00 where I include 2 blocks for lunch (when having lunch I don't take a 5-minute break??) and I might study Spanish, vacuum around the house and go to the supermarket.
• I always keep a list of 'random things', such as a short email, taking care of a bank statement or anything else. Every day I will have at least one or two blocks dedicated to 'Random'.

The challenges I (or you) faced:

There are a couple of things I would like to mention. First of all: not everyone will be able to adopt this technique at all times. If you are in conference calls throughout the day, it's simply just not an option (in most cases at least) to call every 25 minutes for a break (although this might be a very interesting thing to be testing). Furthermore, there were some challenges I was facing:

• Sometimes it can feel very unnatural to stop working on topic X when your mindset is fully set to that specific task. However, I experienced that your efficiency will increase in the long run if you do honour the 25-5 minute structure.
• When a call comes in (let's say a customer wanted to book a surf holiday) I can't turn it down and this likely messes up my schedule. However, returning calls normally means business and that's the aim of the company after all. I learned that keeping some gaps (not too many) open in my schedule could help me when unexpected calls come in, allowing you to finish a particular task later on.

How to start the Pomodoro Technique?

The story on how the name of this technique came about is that the initiator (Francesco Cirillo, he came up with it in the 80's) used a kitchen timer which had the shape of a tomato. The timer was set to 25 minutes and off he went. In case you would be looking for a timer to be using, I have created on myself which might be useful for you.

I would advise you to come up with a schedule at the start of your day. You could use a piece of paper and just write down the time slots (09:00 - 09:25, 09:30 - 09:55 etc.) or create a schedule in a Word or Excel document. I'm convinced you will find a way :)

Thank you very much for reading and I'm very excited to be reading your feedback below in the comments.