I did it! I finished the first draft of my report! 😁

Well I’m not finished, I still need to get the feedback of my supervisor tomorrow and then also do a presentation, but I managed to get the draft done in time and with enough time to spare.

I’m surprised by how productive I’ve been today. Recently I’ve learned about the Pomodoro technique in a training at work about time management. And today was the day I wanted to test it and I really like it. The technique is pretty simple and all you need is a timer.

  1. First you have to write down the things you need to get done.
  2. Then, you set a timer for 25 minutes and work on those things
  3. Afterwards, you re-evaluate your todos and adjust them if necessary
  4. Then, take a break for 5 minutes
  5. Repeat from 2. until you get to 4 work cycles
  6. Take an extended 15 minutes break

You can repeat this procedure as often as you need to. The 25 minute working time seem low enough that you would actually sit through it and the regular breaks prevent your mind from getting exhausted too quickly. I did two of these cycles to write my report and another half cycle to proofread it before I’ve sent it to my supervisor, so I worked on it for a total of 5 hours today, which is unusually high for me. Usually my concentration for university stuff is gone after an hour or two.

Anyway, this technique is good for tasks that need a lot of focus and concentration, so the report was a perfect fit for testing this out. I will definitely try this technique out more in the future for other tasks that I usually struggle to keep my focus on.

Here’s to hope I don’t have to change too much from my report draft 😬

From my walk today:

rainy

Ash