But more creative, intellectual work needs flexibility. The regular pattern of clock-work can be good for grinding through monotonous tasks. These vary with the individual, the time of day, and the task at hand one size won’t fit all. Which is hardly surprising: how long you can stay productive depends on your attention span, stamina, and motivation. This vast range - 5 minutes to two hours - shows that there’s no one best work length. The Ultradian system advocates working for 90 minutes, and it’s based on biological cycles lasting up to two hours.The best music students practised for about 80 minutes at a time in a well-known study.Time-tracking software DeskTime found their most productive users average 52 minutes’ work, plus a 17-minute break.School classes typically last 30–90 minutes, and it’s unclear what length is best.30- and 60-minute stints worked equally well for computer operators in one study.Though Pomodoro advocates 25 minutes, many users choose their own length.Medical professor Dr James Levine suggests 15 minutes’ work at a time.Productivity author Mark Forster recommends starting with 5-minute bursts, and progressively extending them to 40 minutes.How long should each stint last? There’s no consensus between rival time management systems, experts and scientific research at all: Eventually I abandoned it altogether, and figured out why it kept failing: No fixed work length is best But I could never stick to it for more than a few days at a time, as it kept going wrong. Years before I’d even heard of Pomodoro, I devised a similar system using hour-long work stints. Though clock-work suits some people, tasks and situations, it has big problems too. The fixed lengths simplify planning, such as school schedules/timetables similarly, Pomodoro users treat the 25-minute stints as a unit to plan and track their work.They also provide an opportunity to step back and reconsider what you're working on (though thinking about work doesn't make a restful break). You get regular breaks to maintain your energy, attention, decision- making, performance and well-being.Each period has a short-term deadline, which focuses your mind and creates a slight sense of urgency.This makes it easier to start on a daunting project, and to plough on to the next break when a task gets hard or tedious. Each period is an achievable, bite-sized chunk of work.The goodĬlock-work has various benefits, principally: And there are various other techniques (listed below) for working in fixed time intervals against the clock. For centuries, schools have taught lessons this way, ending with a bell. Even back then there was nothing new about working for fixed periods until an alarm goes off. Invented by Francesco Cirillo in the 1980s, Pomodoro was named after a tomato-shaped timer. The idea is that instead of half-working all day, you work in intense 25-minute stints, with 5-minute breaks (or occasionally longer) in between, marked by an alarm: POMODORO is a popular way to manage your time.
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