Control the Monkey with a Pomodoro
You might be thinking, what is with this bizarre title about? What is a pomodoro? What monkey am i talking about? You are not alone here because I was also a bit confused when i first heard these words. But when I learned the concepts and implemented them, I got outstanding results. I know you all are confused a bit, but as you read the blog, you will understand everything.
Procrastination has been my arch nemesis for a long time. Whenever I tried to do something, I would procrastinate and would either fail at completing the task or would get substandard results. I would even say that procrastination cost me my dream of becoming a doctor.
As I was continuing my fellowship program with the Amal Academy, I came to learn about different concepts of procrastination and how I could deal with it. I especially liked how Tim Urban explained the concept of procrastination. The way he described the procrastination as “The instant gratification monkey” was really smart in my opinion. He helped all of us procrastinators to see our arch nemesis and that actually makes it easier for us to fight it, now isn’t it.
The next problem was, How am I going to fight this monkey? How am I going to get back the control of my life? And the answer lied in the Pomodoro technique. It is actually a technique in which you work in short bursts of time with small breaks and after set intervals, you can take longer breaks. This method is so simple, yet it was so effective for me that I was surprised as well. I worked for 6 hours straight without even noticing. These six hours were super productive. Yes I did check my social media in the breaks, but when it was work time, it was work time.
But the habit of procrastination was just not going to leave me now was it. I got distracted a lot of times but I never gave the control back to the Instant gratification monkey as I was now conscious of my time. I was dealing it as a resource, just as I would use my money. But it had a downside to it as well. I was feeling anxious and irritated even after losing a few seconds of my time. For instance, if the internet would get slow or if my family would try to talk to me, or if there was noise from street outside. It got to my nerves and I got angry at these moments.
It was not easy from the get go as well, like the first thought that came into my mind was, “Lets check emails Usama, lets see whether you got replies on teachable comments or not”. But I didn’t let myself get distracted, the clock was ticking, I didn’t want to waste even a single second. As I was taking digital notes, I was getting distracted as my focus was being shifted from one chrome tab to the next. But during all these times, one thing was changed and that’s the fact that I was super conscious of the time that I had.
I wasn’t completely done with my task just yet. I was done with 67% of it though. But some was still remaining. As an experiment, I tried to do the remaining task without a Pomodoro timer. This time, it was hard. I was getting distracted. I wasn’t taking my time seriously. I lost my focus. And the work that could have been done in just 1 hour, it took me 3.
After all of this experience, I am definitely going to use this method for the rest of my life. The only thing I am going to change is that I am going to set the Pomodoro timer to 35 minutes rather than the traditional 25 minutes one. Because in my opinion when I am focused, I better stay focused for more time before I take a break.
So this is what it was all about. Taking control of that Monkey with the pomodoro. So next time if it bothers you, take a Pomodoro and scare the monkey away. Cheers!