A Tomato that pushes you hard

Our fitness usually reflects our lifestyle. Everybody wants to be fit but has limited time. Here’s a technique that you could use that will provide you enough time to accommodate fitness into your daily routine.

Being efficiency is something that everybody aims for, but when you are on your own (working from home) you need tools that will push you to work harder, lest it’s very easy to get distracted.

Here’s a simple time management technique that can have a huge impact on the way you work.

Several businesses have shown a much improved productivity using this technique, and I believe it can help you as well.

And the technique is known as the “Pomodoro Technique”

And what has tomato got to do with it?

Pomodoro means tomato in Italian and this technique is named after the tomato-shaped kitchen timer that was first used by the creator Francesco Cirillo. He also used a sheet of paper (and a pen to write with).

How Does it Work?

Here are the basic steps used in this time management technique:

1. You start with a to-do list
2. Set your timer to 25 minutes (each 25-minute block of time is one Pomodoro) and start working on the first task until the time is up (and you stop irrespective of whether the task is DONE or NOT).
3. Take a 3 to 5 minute break and then resume work for another Pomodoro (25-minutes)
4. Once the task is completed, cross it off your list.
5. After every 4 Pomodoros you take a longer break of around 20 to 30 minutes.

That’s it basically, but there’s a bit more to it as you can fine-tune the entire thing and make it more efficient.

You can download the entire eBook here; it’s free (no catch, no opt-in required)

For complex/bigger projects, you may use additional cheat sheets and worksheet PDFs that can be downloaded free of charge from the http://www.pomodorotechnique.com/products.html page (towards the bottom of the page).

Implementing It

If you’re a freelancer or work from home or are into Internet Marketing, you need to make sure that every hour of yours count.

This is one technique that you can definitely implement right away. If you really implement it, you can get a lot done.

• Make sure you do take the suggested breaks, no matter how close you are to finishing the task at hand. It really refreshes your brain.

• Make sure you use a real timer that ‘ticks’ when using this method, as it puts pressure on you to work faster. Some may find the ticking noise irritating, but with practice you’ll get used to it (you may lower the volume) and it really helps you stay laser-focused.

• If you are addicted to social sites, download the super-cool chrome extension “Strict Pomodoro” which blocks social media sites (and additional sites that you specify) during that 25 minutes. You can always check those sites during the breaks.

So read the book and implement it, and let us know if it works for you!