The #1 obstacle to being productive is distraction. So any method that helps you eliminate or ignore distractions can greatly improve your productivity.
I’ve been using the Pomodoro technique religiously this month and it’s made a noticeable difference in my daily output.
The Pomodoro technique involves working for 25 minutes straight without distractions, then taking a 5-minute break.
One 30-minute session is referred to as a POM. The more POMs you finish in a day, the more productive you’ve been.
In the beginning, you may only complete five POMs in a day. But after a few days of practice, you may be able to complete 10 POMs or more. If you do that, you’ve doubled your productivity.
To enhance this technique, consider finding two other colleagues to compete with.
Right now, I’m “competing” with two other guys in my local mastermind. We track the number of POMs we complete every day of the week, then update our total for the week in a shared Google spreadsheet.
This provides accountability and motivation to stay on track every day.
So how do you track POMs?
I use an iPhone app called Focus Time. It tracks the number of POMs you complete each day. Furthermore, you can create categories of activity so you can see where you’re spending most of your work time.
For example, my friend discovered he was spending 70-80% of his time in one part of his business. But that part of his business was only producing 30-40% of his revenue.
So now he’s intentionally reducing the time he spends in that part of his business and increasing the time he spends in the other.
Increased productivity… greater insight into your work activity… these are the benefits you’ll get from using the Focus Time app.
This article was originally published by Ryan Healy
Published: May 15, 2014
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