Students of all backgrounds have to find their preferred way of studying. Some are Last Minute Lucy and Larry, who wait until the last possible second to read the assignment or write their paper. Some are Get it Done Sooner Sally or Steve who get from home and immediately do the reading or assignment. Some just dabble until they find the routine that works for them.
This past week the Pomodoro focus technique really came into, well, focus for me.
I’d heard about it. Read about it. Half-assed my way through it. And still I struggled with it.
The Pomodoro technique is a minutes on-minutes off routine. This means that you study or read for X minutes and take Y minutes off between study “sessions”. In everything I had ever read before, it was 30 minutes studying, 5 minutes off. Rinse, repeat.
It didn’t work for me; I still have no idea why. Often I would get distracted in the 5 minutes off, or want to continue working in the 30 minutes on. The result was frustration. With myself, with the technique, and with my schoolwork.
However, I listened to a short blurb-ette about the Pomodoro technique this week. Something the presenter said struck me as different but also achievable. I had been approaching it as a zero-sum proposition. 30 minutes on, 5 minutes off. Regimented. Kind of like the operating room that way.
Wrong.
Well, the way it had been explained to me was wrong.
The Pomodoro technique is more forgiving than that.
In this new recording that I heard, you are allowed to keep working in the long segments if you are on a good roll and can push the length of the short segments.
In short, make the technique work for you.
My mind was blown.
Tentatively I decided to try it out. I experimented with the length of time for segment a, or the working portion, and also the length of time for segment b, or the rest portion.
I struck upon what I think will be my new, very favorite way to approach assignments.
30 minutes active working time, with the option of continuing to work, with 1 song length attention to something else.
This week I weeded. In between 30-90 minutes of hyperfocus on writing or reading.
It worked! I was flabbergasted, and eager to continue this next week as well.
I hope that your student finds the best way for them and that I can continue this as well. I will report back in a couple of weeks.
Dispatches from the Evening Shift 