Video Transcript
Hi, everyone; hopefully, you’re having a wonderful November; if you celebrate Halloween, hopefully, you got lots of candy or just sat there and just watched horror films, whatever you wanted to do. I’m hoping that you had a wonderful time. So today, I wanted to talk about the different Pomodoro intervals. The default one is always 25 minutes, but there are different ones you can work with, and then tweak here or there and figure out which one makes sense for you. So that’s what I wanted to talk about today.
And for those who don’t know me, my name is Shevonne. And I talk about productivity, just work/life balance in general, mainly for working moms. And as well as I triple hear their things about my kids and my life as a program manager. So let’s go ahead and get started talking about the different intervals that you can use for Pomodoro.
The first one is the default one, which is 25 minutes. So how it works is you put a timer on usually it works better with a timer, you put a timer on 25 minutes, you work without any interruptions or multitasking because it’s never good. So you work for 25 minutes, then take a five-minute break, do whatever you want in those five minutes, and then you do another 25 minutes after you do for 25-minute intervals, then you take a longer time for your break. And that’s usually 25 to 35 minutes. So you keep going like that until you complete the task you have on hand or your day. But that’s usually how the default goes. I will say that the default one does not work for me usually. And it’s because as much as I try, I tend to get distracted by the time I get into that flow state. And I’m sitting there working and just concentrating on what I’m doing. So it takes about like 10 minutes, and then to get interrupted 25 minutes. That’s way too short. So let me go ahead and tell you the interval that works for me.
The second interval is working 45 to 50 minutes stretches. For me, I prefer 15 minutes. And then what you do is you work 15 minutes, you take a 10-minute break. And then usually, instead of waiting for the four intervals, like the 25 minutes, I do it after three intervals. And then I take 30 minutes to stretch my legs, do whatever I want to do to just rest. But that works for me, especially with tasks that have different parts, or something that’s going to take longer, let’s say, an essay, or do some strategic type of planning, that seems to work well with me. But you can also pick a shorter interval. And that’s what we’re going to talk about now.
So the third one is working 10-15 minutes and then taking a three-minute break. And then, after four intervals, you take 15 to 30 minutes. Usually, that works well for shorter tasks, checking email, calling someone, but hey, it could work for you.
You don’t have to use one interval. You can mix them up. Maybe you decide that for certain tasks like I said, if you’re checking email, use the shorter intervals of like 10 to 15 minutes. If you’re doing something, maybe you’re having a meeting with someone or something that isn’t going to take an hour, do the 25 minutes. If you are, as I said, you’re working on an essay, creating a process map, or something that’s going to take you to take a while to do, then do the 15 minutes. So play around with the different intervals. There could be an interval we haven’t talked about that might work better for you.
That is the thing. I think sometimes we tend to beat ourselves up. If we don’t follow the norm and fail at it, we feel like, oh my gosh, I’m just doing it wrong. I suck and stuff. But that’s usually just not the case. Guess what humans we’re all different people. We don’t think the same we don’t act the same. So, of course, we’re not going to do the same things. So play around with it and figure out what makes sense for you.
So I wanted to close out by saying that I am offering a free productivity checklist. I have like the different processes and tools that I use. And you can use two to three or even more, use all of them and see which ones are making your life easier. So I’m providing that and a sample work schedule that I have mainly for working moms to see what a schedule for a working mom is that is working for her. They can tweak it for themselves. So go ahead and check that out.
I’ll put the link down below, and with that, I’ll talk to everyone soon. Bye.
