on being less busy, part 1

here’s my follow-up post to the is busy the new normal? post i wrote a couple weeks ago. i’m going to break this up into two parts- the first being all about the biggest change i’ve made that i’ve found to be, quite frankly, life changing. part 2 will be a list of about a dozen smaller tweaks that on their own might seem silly and like, DUH, but all together are life changing in their own right. so that’s tomorrow. check back for that.

for now: let’s talk about the biggie. TIMERS. yes. like, timing things. WHAT!?.

a day or two after i wrote that last big post, i had this wild hair moment that was born slightly majorly out of frustration (hello, dishes in the sink first thing in the morning, totally not the way i want to start my day) and i thought: ok. i am setting the dang timer on the microwave clock. 60 minutes. ready, set, go! i thought i’d knock out the dishes, clean up from the lunches i’d just packed, take the recycling to the car and maybe start a load of laundry in that time, if i was lucky. but really, i was just curious to see what i could get done when i was really paying attention to the time. i turned on some music, set dotty up with some crayons and paper and i got to work. and you know what? i got all that stuff done in about half the time. HALF. and i wasn’t even working like a freak at lightening speed or anything, i was just simply staying focused on one task at a time and not getting sidetracked and falling down the twitter rabbithole. (don’t judge, you do it too).

so, i was completely and utterly thrilled with myself that i got a huge surge of energy and knocked out a bunch more tasks before that remaining 30 minutes was even up. holy crap! you can get a lot of stuff done in 60 minutes when you’re paying attention!

i’ll say it again! YOU CAN GET A LOT OF STUFF DONE IN 60 MINUTES WHEN YOU’RE PAYING ATTENTION, and when you’re not: stopping to check your email and losing an hour online. or going downstairs to get the clothes out of the dryer and finding yourself clipping the cat’s nails instead. and then having to come upstairs and change your shirt because you have cat hair on it now, and you go through 3 or 5 or 9 shirts before you decide on the right one. and then you go into the bathroom and notice that Your Hair Is A Wreck and upon closer inspection, your brows need a pluck. and on your way back through the bedroom, you might put the shirts away but probably you’ll leave them right there on the bed because your doorbell is ringing and it’s a kid trying to raise money for a trip, and you find yourself standing awkwardly at the door, growing increasingly impatient but trying to be polite because he really, really wants to go on that class trip, and who can blame him. well, except for you, who is “working” and not really appreciating the interruption. so you close the door on the kid and decide that maybe you should put a nice “no solicitors” sign above your doorbell because, really- after living here for 4 years, you’ve had more than your share of solicitors. and you never buy any of those magazine subscriptions or schwann’s steaks anyway. and you find the whole interruption kind of rude and certainly annoying. so you head off to make a quick sign. and twenty minutes later, you finally get yourself back on track and what was it you were doing anyway? yeah. this is the stuff that sucks the order and productivity right out of my days, people. i am serious.

basically, this timer thing? it’s my magic solution. and it’s soooo simple, and why did i not think about it sooner?

later on that day, i chatted the mister at work (guess what! i’m having an amazing day! i am so awesome! getting a-z done in a flash!) and he sent me back a link for something called the pomodoro technique, saying, oh- yeah! we use that a lot at work. um… you mean… there’s a name for this thing i just did?! ok wow. and also, why did you not share this with me???

The Pomodoro Technique is a time management method developed by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s. The technique uses a timer to break down periods of work into 25-minute intervals called ‘pomodoros’ (from the Italian word for ‘tomato’) separated by breaks…

There are five basic steps to implementing the technique:

1. decide on the task to be done
2. set the pomodoro (timer) to 25 minutes
3. work on the task until the timer rings; record with an x
4. take a short break (5 minutes)
5. every four “pomodoros” take a longer break (15–20 minutes)

except instead of doing 25 minute blocks, i was doing full hours. but you could set the timer for whatever you want, i would guess. 15 minutes for a quick tidy of a room, or a half hour for chipping away at emails, or 45 minutes for a handful of other tasks. whatever the jobs might be- around the house stuff or actual work stuff! i think the thing is, it keeps you from drifting off into never-never land.

so here’s a couple things i added to my own little blocks of time:

1. wear sneakers + comfortable clothing. and there was a comment about this on the original post. there’s something about dressing in some workout clothes that has you moving that much faster. super simple, but genius.
2. music is key. i mean it. music makes allll the difference. and even better? headphones. talk about being in the ZONE.
3. water, water, water. ever time my timer would go off, i would go to the kitchen sink and drink a large glass of water. sometimes i can be really bad about drinking enough water, so it worked out well to have this little reminder when the clock went beep-beep-beep that i would head into the kitchen to reset the timer and go chug-chug-chug before hitting the go button again. i realized that after a couple days of doing this, i started to feel amazing.

and speaking of amazing, i’ll tell you something else. what doesn’t feel amazing is falling off the timer wagon. i was on a little roll with the timer thing, and then one day i didn’t do it. and i felt capital A W F U L awful. and then what did i go and do? i didn’t set the timer again the next day. um, what was wrong with me?!?! i had just hit the Feel Good, Do Awesome Stuff JACKPOT and i was like, yeeeeaaah, whatever. so i slapped myself and got back on it.

and let me tell you what, peeps. i am not looking back.

please try this. try it at home, try it at work. the pomodoro technique totally gets the freckle seal of approval.

stay tuned for part 2 tomorrow, where i will talk to you about exciting stuff! lists, my new outlook on the internet, clean slates + fresh starts and so on. and if any of you have made any changes for the better since our last chat on this whole thing, please chime in! i want to hear.

Tagged as: balance, life