Pomodoro Technique
Pomodoro means tomato in Italian. The Pomodoro Technique is a time-management strategy developed by Cirillo in the late 1980s, and it is named after the tomato shaped timer he used as a university student to organise his work (Cirillo, 2018). The Pomodoro Technique can significantly enhance your productivity, especially around assessment periods. By breaking your study time into intervals, typically suggested by Cirillo (2018) as 25 minutes of focused study, followed by a five-minute break, it encourages uninterrupted effort. However, Lasisi and Salihu (2023) suggest that you alter the study intervals until you find a ratio that works for you, for example 30 minutes work followed by a ten-minute break, or 45 minutes work and a fifteen-minute break.
After completing four Pomodoro cycles, you are advised to take a longer break, usually around 20-30 minutes. This structured approach helps by preventing mental fatigue, a common challenge when engaging with work for extended periods. The frequent breaks allow you to revive, preventing burnout and ensuring that your study sessions remain productive over long hours. Another key advantage of the Pomodoro technique is that it encourages sustained focus by reducing distractions (Sofiyana and Utami, 2022). The strict boundaries of each 25-minute work session help you resist these distractions by encouraging a sense of focus.
Overall, the Pomodoro Technique promotes better time awareness, allowing you to monitor your progress in smaller, manageable increments. By using a timer, you become more conscious of how much time is dedicated to each task, helping you allocate time more efficiently across various commitments. This can reduce procrastination, as the fixed intervals make the idea of starting a task less daunting.
References
Cirillo, F. (2018) The Pomodoro Technique: The Life-Changing Time-Management System. London: Ebury Publishing.
Lasisi, A. K. and Salihu, N. O. (2023) ‘Strategies for managing academic procrastination among students in Nigerian tertiary institutions’, Al-Hikmah Journal of Educational Management and Counselling, 5(2), pp. 51-61.
Sofiyana, H. and Utami, A. (2022) ‘Enhancing ‘how to learn’ skills: Its impact on academic performance and student’ motivation’, The Asian Conference on Education and International Development. Available at: https://papers.iafor.org/wp-content/uploads/papers/aceid2022/ACEID2022_62231.pdf (Accessed: 3 December 2024).