The significance of the tomato clock working method lies in maintaining enthusiasm and tension, paying high attention, speeding up the progress of transaction processing and reducing the number of interruptions in a limited time, which can effectively improve efficiency, enhance decision-making judgment and cure procrastination.
According to the research of Wharton Business School, in less than one day, such as one hour or half an hour, switching jobs and unilaterally pursuing diversity will make people feel stressed and weaken their happiness. In the same tomato clock period, focusing on one job can effectively improve happiness and sense of accomplishment.
each of us is lazy, and intuitively inclined to accomplish easier things. Eating frogs every day (an important matter) often needs to be an enemy of inertia, and it is necessary to get rid of the inner struggle and concentrate on energy. The tomato clock working method is just an excellent help to eat frogs well.
simply speaking, the tomato clock work method takes 3 minutes as the measurement cycle, in which 25 minutes are devoted to completing tasks and 5 minutes are used for rest.
The measuring period of a tomato clock can be shortened or extended, but the time for adults to do tasks is generally 25 minutes, and the longest time should not exceed 4 minutes; Due to the limitation of physical strength and energy, children can generally take their actual age X2 as a task stage.
within 25 minutes of concentrating on the task, it is necessary to maintain the continuity of investment time, devote all attention, and it is best to enter the flow state. After about 4 tomato minutes, that is, 12 minutes, you can have a rest of 15 minutes-2 minutes.
The working method of tomato clock well embodies the working principle of combining relaxation with rest. As put forward in the book Energy Management, our energy, physical strength and willpower can be effectively strengthened, restored and improved through the intermittent rotation of high-intensity work and study and full rest and relaxation.
before you start eating tomatoes, you need to collect all the affairs of the day and put them into the inventory system. It is best to plan the scene, place and time period of each job, make task decomposition, and combine similar jobs to improve the completion efficiency.
Eating tomatoes is mainly to cultivate the habit of eating frogs with high concentration, which can only be used when dealing with important things, but there is no need to use the tomato clock method for some chores. Therefore, in the list, according to the importance and urgency of the task, determine the three frogs to eat that day, and apply pomodoro technique to the three frogs.
after identifying the three frogs of the day, it is necessary to estimate the specific tomato clock time and make a reasonable time allocation.
First of all, we should estimate the maximum number of tomatoes available for the day, leave free time for temporary events, and arrange the frogs to be eaten in order.
estimating the time required for each frog event should be based on the whole number of tomatoes, and no similar half tomatoes can appear. If the total task time exceeds 8 available tomato time, the task steps and plans need to be re-planned because the time is too long; If there are several items that take a short time, they can be completed in a tomato clock.
For example, if you want to write an important report today, you can estimate the time, estimate the framework and materials, collect one tomato clock, write three tomato clocks, revise and arrange two tomato clocks, and one * * * is six tomato clocks.
If the estimation is inaccurate and the writing process is greatly hindered, and the total time is more than 8 tomato clocks, considering that people's energy is limited and time needs to be set aside for other tasks, it is necessary to break up the tasks. You can plan the overall structure of one tomato clock today, complete the first half of three tomato clocks, and arrange the rest to be completed the next day if it is not urgent.
after you start eating tomatoes, you should keep a high degree of concentration, try to avoid the loss of efficiency caused by task switching, and create an undisturbed environment. If the work is completed within a tomato clock, it can be better consolidated and improved by checking and reviewing the completed work.
when the task time reaches 25 minutes, stop working immediately, and then rest for 5 minutes wholeheartedly.
every time a tomato clock is completed, mark √ in the tomato worksheet check box. If the original planned check box is full, but the activity has not been completed, a second estimate is needed, which is indicated by+. If you execute the tomato clock, you will encounter an internal interrupt (*); Encountered an external interrupt, remember (-).
if the interrupted temporary matters need to be delayed, they will be directly recorded in the inventory system and the processing time will be arranged. If the current task needs to be interrupted immediately and the execution time exceeds 5 minutes, the tomatoes being eaten will be invalid.
Before you start eating tomatoes, you can briefly think about what you want to achieve in this tomato clock; After the end of a tomato clock, also briefly think about whether it has reached the stage goal.
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The tomato clock working method is not suitable for everyone or any scene.
Because the tomato clock work method will be interrupted at the end of each tomato clock, it will force people who need to be in a state of flow for a long time to interrupt their thinking, which will cause fatal losses to a job that needs continuous thinking or urgent work.
for example, we need to finish an emergency report or design plan immediately, and we need to work continuously for 9 minutes to finish it. Obviously, the 3-minute tomato clock will cut off our thinking, increase the time for thinking switch, and it is very likely that we will not finish the task on time. At this point, it is best to immerse yourself in the task until it is completed.
and leisure time such as spending time with family, friends and relaxing can't be measured by tomato clock. When playing with children, we should cherish the parent-child time and accompany them to grow up; When you go shopping with your girlfriend, you should nourish it with love and respect and spend more time communicating. When traveling and relaxing, you should devote yourself to and relax completely, so don't think that I have to eat a tomato to deal with emails and write materials.
The tomato clock is suitable for scenes where the work content and place are relatively fixed, and there are few emergencies, so there is no need to run around; There is little need for persistence and in-depth thinking, or the preliminary investigation and in-depth thinking have been completed, forming a basic framework and scheme. What needs to be done is operation and execution, even if the task is interrupted, it will not have much impact.
For those who are engaged in non-creative work, have a big sense of time or have procrastination, they can also use tomatoes to measure their efficiency in completing tasks and cultivate their sensitivity to time.
The most feared thing when executing the tomato clock is that it is often interrupted. This kind of interruption is divided into internal interruption and external interruption.
for internal interruptions, the key is to plan ahead to avoid frequent interruptions. Internal interruption usually when we eat tomatoes, we have an epiphany that something needs to be dealt with. At this time, it is only necessary to add the new items into the list system of the day as soon as possible.
For more urgent and important affairs, you can interrupt the current tomato clock and restart a tomato clock to handle new affairs; For those that are important but not urgent, put them on the schedule, and start the next tomato clock after the current tomato clock is executed.
for external interruption, this situation is often beyond our control. In particular, superiors and colleagues need to entrust you with urgent matters. While you are recording things quickly, can you postpone communicating with others? If you can postpone it, put it on the schedule and deal with it later; If an important transaction cannot be completed, postponed or urgent within 3 seconds, it is necessary to interrupt the current tomato clock and start processing the tomato clock for a new transaction.
When eating tomatoes, we'd better inform our family or colleagues in advance that we are completing important tasks in a certain period of time, and strive to create a relatively quiet space for ourselves and try to avoid being disturbed.
The general principle of dealing with the interruption problem is to turn the interruption into a task, successfully delay the impact of the interruption on the current tomato clock and increase the controllability of the tomato task; According to the importance and urgency, properly handle interruptions, make records in time, and protect your tomato clock.
Life is a marathon, which requires long endurance. The essence of the working method of tomato clock is to combine work and rest, improve efficiency and balance yourself.
You need to make full use of precious rest time between eating tomatoes. During the 5-minute break, you can meditate, be in a daze, listen to a piece of music and do a few push-ups. In a longer break after four tomato clocks, you can do a short KEEP task, go out of the office to communicate with colleagues, have a cup of coffee at the corner, replenish water or add a meal, take a walk outdoors, climb the stairs, or even do a short sprint, which are all effective ways to relax.
For people who work hard and sit for a long time, it is especially necessary to get up to exercise joints and relieve stress. According to scientific research, people who sit for more than 1 hours on average every day have a higher level of troponin in their blood than the average. However, the long-term existence of high troponin level indicates that there is a problem inside the myocardium, which will cause physical damage.
The most important tool for working with tomato clock is "one watch and one clock".
a table is the tomato clock worksheet, with a list of items to be completed that day on the left and items requiring pomodoro technique and related records on the right.
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a clock is a timer, which includes a machine timer and mobile APP software. I usually put a machine timer at home and an office. There are many kinds of timers on Taobao, and the most cost-effective one is the tomato clock. The ticking sound will make the time pass more clearly and improve the concentration of the opponent's work.
on other occasions, we often use mobile phone software, such as Forest, tomato TODO, Focus Timer, PomoNow, tide, etc., which are convenient and easy-to-use timing tools. These tools are easy to use, and you can explore them slowly.
if a worker wants to do a good job, he must sharpen his tools first. As one of the sharp tools of time management, the tomato clock work method will bring you more focused time and efficiency upgrade.