Pomodoro Technique Magic: Leverage It to Improve Well-Being, Not Just Focus
How I use Pomodoro to safeguard my wellness as a knowledge worker.
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I’m in a yo-yo relationship with the Pomodoro technique.
Like every respectable productivity nerd, I tried it for a while years ago. It was helping, but I forgot about it. I don’t know why.
Every now and then, I get back to it. And I remember how it’s much more than a focusing tool. It safeguards my wellness as a knowledge worker.
Let me share with you why it works. It may help you avoid or fix several modern problems caused by endless work sessions tied to a desk.
But first, the theory
Maybe you aren’t a productivity nerd like me. (Sorry for that, by the way 😉) So, here’s a brief introduction.
The Pomodoro technique divides your work sessions into fixed time intervals to increase focus:
work for 25 minutes,
rest for 5 minutes,
repeat the steps above 4 times,
take a longer break (20 minutes).
The inventor of the technique was Italian and used a kitchen timer shaped as a tomato. “Pomodoro” means “tomato” in Italian, hence the name.
The technique works because knowing that you will soon be allowed to have a break makes you less prone to distractions.
Without the Pomodoro technique, I hurt myself
Laser focus has always been embedded in me. To my detriment. I remember coming out of an intense, hour-long guitar practice session with bloodshot eyes. I was maybe 10.
The typical situation is this:
I’m writing an article,
I forget to take breaks,
I keep thinking in a leep, “let me write just another phrase”,
I slouch, hunch, and clench to push through.
These bad habits take a toll on my body.
Thinking slows down, I get restless, and my stiffened muscles hurt. When I come out of the hypnosis and finally take a break, it’s too late. To recover from the strain, I’d need to rest for an hour, but I don’t have that much time.
If you are struggling with brain fog, sore muscles, rigidity, and the plethora of perks that come with knowledge work, the Pomodoro technique may be a lifesaver. For me, it is.
Power up your breaks
Five-minute breaks can do a lot for you. Especially if they punctuate your day.
Most of my ailments come from repetitive stress: staring at a screen, breathing shallowly, clenching, hunching, typing, and so on.
Frequent pauses break these patterns. Especially if you use them well.
Lie down
I work from home. No one is shocked if I lie on my home office floor.
This is the simplest way to make the most of your breaks. It relaxes the back and resets the posture.
This is the most restful position I found:
lie on your back,
plant your feet on the ground, raising the knees towards the ceiling,
rest your hands above the head, palms up, elbows bent,
support the head with a yoga brick or thick book.
A few seconds is enough to feel my spine lengthen and my lower back relax.
Breathe intentionally
Email apnea is a thing.
Bad posture, anxiety, and prolonged concentration lead to very shallow breathing. This puts us in a fight-or-flight state of mind that, in turn, increases the tension. It’s a vicious cycle. Not exactly a boost to creative thinking!
During my breaks, I try to revert to deep breathing.
All these techniques work well:
Physiological sigh. Take a deep long breath through the nose, then take another sip of air, then exhale through your mouth slowly.
Boxed breathing. Inhale for a count of four, hold breath for a count of four, exhale for a count of four, hold breath for a count of four, repeat.
I often combine this with the above resting position.
Stretch
I get incredibly tight after just 30 minutes of work.
Glutes, quads, hamstrings, shoulder blades, pecs, neck: nothing stays loose.
After years of experiments, I found some exercises with very high ROI. When my body is less tight, my focus improves. And, if I’m consistent throughout the day, I also feel better at night.
Active stretches are the best. They alternate contracting and stretching the muscles.
To find the best exercises for you, understand where you feel particularly rigid. Then search on YouTube how to stretch that part. Try a few exercises until you find the most effective ones.
You can start with these channels:
Alternatively, the book Deskbound may have everything you need.
Exercise
A five-minute break is enough to squeeze in a short workout:
rope skipping,
pushups,
pullups,
squats,
burpees.
These exercises are simple, turn on your sleepy muscles and reactivate your circulation.
Rest your eyes
When I work, I squint and scrunch like an eagle.
The eye strain accumulates over the day. So, during breaks, I try not to look at screens.
I reverse the behavior by widening my gaze: as I look ahead, I pay attention to what’s at the extremes of my field of view. This relaxes the eyes.
Another simple exercise consists in looking at object at at least 20-feet for at least 20 seconds.
Customize your Pomodoro rhythm
Twenty-five minutes of work always feel too short. I constantly snooze the break alarm (the irony!).
The good news is that we can customize the duration of the intervals. Many people can stay focused for around 60 minutes, for example.
So, over time, I extended the work interval to 45 minutes. I made the breaks proportionately longer. This way, I still take lots of breaks and limit the risk of exhaustion, but the alarm doesn’t always stop me too soon.
A little tedium, a lot of benefits
Remembering to start the pomodoro before starting to work is hard. I often jump to my keyboard, start typing and clicking and get sucked into the day’s tasks.
That’s another benefit of the Pomodoro technique: being more mindful.
It’s just another habit we can (maybe should) develop. Try it maybe only in the morning, or for a couple hours every day. As you get used to it, customize it, and let it dictate the rhythm of your work.
I hope this helped. Let me know if you tried this technique, what you think of it, or how you increase your focus and wellness.
I wrote an in-depth guide to help you design and create the best creator system for you. Not a fixed series of steps, but the guidelines to help you find what works for you.
Here it is:
I first heard about this in an ADHD video series. I tried it but can never seem to get it to work for me like it does most people.
It might be because I can only really get into the task on off days from work. I couldn't specifically pinpoint but I'm glad it's working great for you.
Have you heard of 'clear the calculator'?
If your next task is different from the last, you need to switch your brain, but even after the 5 minute break we are still thinking about things from the last activity/meeting/etc., and takes time to reset.
Enter the AC button on the calculator.
In a calculator, if you don't 'clear' with the C or AC button, your next calculation will use the last result and thus be wrong.
But all is good after pressing C or AC, your next calculation is perfectly right.
Same when we switch tasks, as part of the 5 minutes after the Pomodoro alarm goes off, consciously think and do the hand movement of pressing C or AC, even say it out loud or in your head: Clear the calculator.
Simple and works wonders for refocusing with a fresh mind onto the next task.
Cheers from a fellow productivity nerd 👊