One of the biggest challenges about not having an office to go to or a boss to hold you accountable is prioritizing. Around my house the things that go noticed are dirty dishes, refilling toilet paper rolls, piles of laundry (clean and dirty), hungry children, showered momma, non-returned phone calls/emails . Things that go unnoticed. Amazing rough draft, hand knit almost finished something, menu plan, budget, family meal plan, daily blog entry, Instagram (oh, how I love you), returned phone calls/emails, etc. You get the picture.
So, here lies the dilemma, where do I spend my time? I wake up on Monday and tell myself that I have so ordered my life that I can keep the must do balls in the air while I am working on my latest “project(s)”. Then, I get up, go work out, return home and *BAM I am back to my hamster wheel doing laundry, picking up breakfast, retuning calls and emails….the day is over and I am exhausted and defeated.
How does this happen EVERY WEEK??? Newish plan (well, I do this with housecleaning, because I despise cleaning my house….I know, what a great house wife I am….please refer to last week’s post). The Pomodoro Technique. It goes something like this…
- Make a list of your to-do’s
- Set a timer for (25 Minutes)
- Do a task
- Take a 5 Minute Break (more coffee for me)
- On to the next task (every 4 breaks you take a longer break)
This seems totally doable. So the first thing I did was find an alarm on my phone that would not send me into a seizure every time it goes off…I currently have it set to church bells. Then, I made my list and I am off. We will see how it goes but if nothing else, I will have thoughts of Tomatoes in my head all of the time. I love a good Sin Apple. And who knew there is even an App for that although I kind of just want a cute Tomato Timer! What do you do to stay focused?
3 Comments
what a lovely idea. i am going to give it a try. unless i have a list of to-do’s, i start something and get distracted and start about 5 other projects and at the end of the day i have lots of started and unfinished projects. i’ve even considered a chore calendar (for myself *sigh*) so that i can hurry and do what needs to be done and spend the rest of the day doing the fun stuff. like reading blogs.
marci´s last [type] ..january 22, 2012
Amy,
When you find the answer to this you can write a book. Until then here are the little tricks that work for my. Remember, I’m an empty nester so life is considerably different for me. I work from an 8-week rotating dinner menu – have for decades.
I don’t always follow it but it sure helps to keep me organized. I’ll email it to you. It’s really just “food for thought” shall we say!
Then since I work from home I try the following general weekly schedule.
Monday – House stuff. Laundry, pick up the house, etc.
Tuesday – work
Wednesday – volunteer day – food bank, church tutoring in the afternoon and choir
Thursday – work
Friday – finish what’s left and ME!
Now… the days of the week don’t fall neatly into order, but if I have a goal schedule it helps me to push things together when I can.
Gail
nice and effective technique
))
also there is a GAME based on this called pomodorium
that makes is less effective but more enjoyable
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