Are you a procrastinator?
Me too!
We ALL do it. We know the tasks we need to get done – the important things that will grow our businesses and help us reach our goals – and we still find ourselves scrolling through Facebook only to look up 30 minutes later and realize we haven’t gotten a thing accomplished.
It’s reality check time: Are you any closer to your dreams than you were 1 week ago? 1 month ago? 1 year ago?
Not quite?
Then it’s time to master the art of FOCUS, my friend!
Today I’m sharing how I tend to procrastinate and my secret weapon to help you stop procrastination in its tracks and fire up your days so your to-do list becomes a done list.
Your Focus Becomes Your Reality
We live in the fastest-paced time in history, where everyone is constantly busy. We’ve bought into the hype that multi-tasking is the key to becoming more productive.
So we sit down to work with multiple windows open on our computer, tabbing between email and social media, getting distracted by phone calls or notifications.
And the research isn’t pretty. The average person gets interrupted within minutes of starting a task and it takes 25 minutes to get back on track. We check our phones over a hundred times a day. What should take us 30 minutes to check off the list ends up taking hours.
Stop Multi-Tasking. Start Single-Tasking.
Learning how to quickly get focused is the greatest productivity technique any entrepreneur can learn. It sounds easy enough, but it takes a bit of practice to break the bad habits of multi-tasking.
My favorite strategy is the Pomodoro Technique.
The Pomodoro Technique is a gamification strategy that embraces single-tasking. Instead of allowing interruptions and distractions, you shut down everything so you can focus 100% on the task at hand in short, focused 25-minute bursts.
Once your 25 minutes is up, you can take a 5-minute mental break (I use this time to take a quick walk, do a few yoga poses, or drink some water) before sitting down for another 25-minute session.
Personally, I’ve found that 3 rounds of Pomodoros (about 90 minutes total) is the perfect amount of time for me to get an incredible amount of work done before I’m ready for a 30-minute break.
Ready to Pomodoro?
Grab your to-do list and choose your first task. Then set your timer for your first round!
- 25 Minutes Work
- 5 Minute Break
- 25 Minutes Work
- 5 Minute Break
- 25 Minutes Work
- 30 Minutes Break
Feel free to give yourself an incentive for completing your round of Pomodoros. A walk to the coffee shop or a few chapters of a fiction book gives you a little break so you can stay sharp. After all, your brain is trained to want to have fun and not work so hard all the time!
You can also do multiple rounds of Pomodoros each day. I aim for one round in the morning and another in the afternoon to get the most out of each workday.
Try It On! Challenge yourself to try out the Pomodoro Technique today and let me know the results in the comments below!