Procrastination: Pomodoro Technique to Overcome it Forever
Overview
Different surveys from student populations have claimed that procrastination is pervasive & about 85–90% of students have the same problems associated with procrastination.
I’m not the only in this situation, this is so common and specially in students, numbers are quite high. Even 20% of students openly identify themselves as a procrastinator while some say that a procrastination is our life style. This is so common now that people don’t consider it as a problem itself but what they say is that it is a failure of us in not self-regulation.
Most people procrastinate for so many reasons like, the thrill seekers who wait for the elated rush to very last moments and the elusive ones who avoid the fear of failure & success. These people actually lack in efforts rather than in abilities. Critical procrastinators are those who can’t really take their own decisions and fear the outcomes from it.
So, what do you think, you are a procrastinator or not?
About me; yes, I’m a critical procrastinator, a bad decisionmaker, usually submit my assignments at a very last moment and has always a delay in getting things done. This cost of this habit is critical like sometimes I nearly destroyed my teamwork & some friendships just because I delayed in some responsibilities and also facing some health issues due to this bad habit.
I don’t think that someone can just avoid it by simply removing the constant distractions while in some cases you can’t even remove distraction but there are options out there through which the distractions can be avoided.
The Pomodoro Technique and My Experience
One of the famous methods presented by many phycologists is THE POMODORO TECHNIQUE, in order to see whether it is viable or not, let’s take a task and apply it.
So, I have task for this week i.e., to prepare a proposal for the Mega Project after approval from team I decide to make a document and I think the time this kind of work takes is 2–3 hrs. as per my expertise ideally so I have to set a timer of 25 minutes on my mobile because I don’t have a Pomodoro [special purpose timer device] and try to analyze the distraction I’ll face during that time.
“Never neglect details. When everyone’s mind is dulled or distracted the leader must be doubly vigilant.”
— Colin Powell
The proposal is complete now and I have 4 ticks on notes but it took me 4 hours just to complete it and that’s all happened because of the goddam distractions I’ve faced so far. I’ve repeated that 25 min time interval 4–5 times but still I couldn’t made on time. The 3–5 min breaks ended up in 10–12 min break all other uncertain distraction did not let me complete my task on time.
I’m going to list here all the distractions:
Facebook/WhatsApp/LinkedIn notifications.
These have distracted me a lot more then others so what I did is to put my cellphone far from where I usually work turned notification bell off and set up a specific timeframe to get in touch with socials.
Chatty family members.
My two little brothers are to much talkative so I decide to shut the room door and they won’t be able to interfere anymore.
Outside noises.
The most annoying and funniest distraction is the noise that comes from outside the house, we can’t avoid it. I was working and suddenly the voice raises of Teen Dabbe Wala, Alu Wala-Gobhi Wala and Paplet Machi Wala, that moment when I smiled and hated at the same time.
There is no solution for that or maybe you can make a use of high-quality noise cancellation headsets, I can’t because I don’t have that much money to afford these types of luxuries. I’m good with these voices.
Eating habits.
I’m not an over weighted person but still I have that habit of eating a lot while working, after every 5–10 minutes something pins me to go and have something and it takes not a lot of time but it really decreases my productivity and focus.
The solution, no I don’t have any, what can I do to this habit? I’ve tried to ban myself from it a lot but that didn’t work yet.
My conclusion
The last words to this whole experience are that it is quite good technique to know about distractions that you face during working hours, you cannot remove or avoid these with this technique. What I can do is to apply Hit n Trial method then maybe you’ll be able to find a solution to avoid because every solution doesn’t work for everyone. so, the solution which I’ll get is viable for me only.
Despite of that, I’ve applied Pomodoro technique while doing all of my tasks for this week and things are getting better. My focus and productivity are much better than before and obviously as a result time management and task management is quite enhanced now.