Can't calm down? The right way to spend 25 minutes focusing and 5 minutes resting

Any serious personal pursuit depends on the accumulation of effective pure time. Let's use the little tomatoes together to overcome blind self-impression and impulse efforts! Hello, I'm Chumo.

Now, do you have these questions or feelings:

It's easy to download a tomato app, but you're confused after opening it?

Why can't you calm down? Are there any "quick entry" techniques?

"When you focus, you're like a god, and when you rest, you're like a dead person", it's easy to say, but it's hard to do! How can we do it?

1. 25 minutes: 4 techniques to make you focus like a god

Time management is not to make us an efficient machine, but to achieve a balanced time management state. The first state is to be like a god when you focus, with a Zen meaning, focusing on work and study, without distractions, and a calm mind, instead of being distracted and always having thousands of horses galloping in your mind.

So, how do we exercise our concentration? The 25 minutes of tomato is our answer. How can we be more focused in the 25 minutes of tomato time? After practicing tens of thousands of Tomatoes, I have these 4 tips to share with you:

1.1 Focus Tips 1 Use the "Bright Line Principle" to Remind Distractions

The so-called "bright line" is a jargon in the lawyer circle of Western countries, which means "clear, concise, and never vague rules." For example, when you quit smoking, you say "I will smoke less" instead of "I will not smoke a single cigarette." This rule is not a bright line. Quitting smoking means not smoking a single cigarette, and quitting drinking means not drinking a single drop. This is a bright line.

With a bright line, when you cross this line, you will inevitably realize your distraction and cannot deceive yourself! With Tomato, when you pick up your phone to check your Moments, you will know that you have crossed the line of "needing to stay focused." Especially when using apps like Forest that "force you to quit mobile phone addiction," if you pick up your phone, the cute little tree of focus will really die for you to see! In contrast, if you don't use the Tomato App, you won't even feel that you are checking your Moments, and it has long become a subconscious behavior.

During the 25-minute Pomodoro time, you can’t do anything else except what you plan to do. Reading is reading, and writing reports is writing reports. You can’t do anything even “beneficial” or “valuable”. Not doing what you should do at the moment is procrastination. Checking WeChat is definitely not okay.

The Pomodoro draws a line for you. When you cross the line, you notice it immediately. Long-term training is the basis of concentration. Without the Pomodoro, you are wandering around, and you still think you are learning, working hard, and being moved by yourself.

1.2 Concentration Skill 2 Use “Ritual Sense” to Enhance the Effect

Second, create a sense of ritual. There is a saying that goes,

There should be a sense of ritual in life!

The sense of ritual is not only about not “living too rough”, but also has other more practical uses: “Ritual” can help us enter a state of concentration faster and better. For example, my ritual is very simple. When I turn on the Pomodoro, I will also put on headphones and listen to my favorite music.

In the long run, turning on this music is like pressing a switch for me. This is a ritual that helps me quickly enter a state of concentration.

Even pressing the button to start the Pomodoro timer, the alarm or vibration that ends the Pomodoro work time and rest time is also a minimalist ritual.

1.3 Focus Skill 3 Use Tools to Resist Temptation

The third focus skill is to use auxiliary tools to resist temptation.

Many people know in their hearts that "you should focus when doing Pomodoro", but they still "can't help but swipe their phones". At this time, in order to maintain your focus, in the early stages, you can even use some auxiliary tools to block websites, block Weibo, Douban, Zhihu or other websites that consume a lot of your time and energy, and plug these time black holes. There are many such tools on the market. After you simply set it according to your needs, it will automatically block non-productive websites when you open them. And once set, it will be effective for life, even if you turn off the computer.

With the help of external tools, use cleverness instead of brute force to resist the temptation of entertainment and avoid meaningless consumption of willpower. If you persist for a long time, it will become a habit.

For example, I installed a time statistics tool called "RescueTime" on my computer. This tool automatically counts the time I spend browsing various websites and using various software, and then sends me a "time statistics report" regularly. What's even more amazing is that it can help me automatically block some websites (paid function). At 9 o'clock every morning, it will start on time and automatically block all non-productive websites for one hour.

The logic I set is very simple:

Protect the best energy period in the morning to avoid distraction;

Suppress the worst energy period in the evening to avoid indulging in entertainment.

After my simple settings, it will automatically start blocking all non-productive websites at 9 o'clock every morning and 10 o'clock every night. The list of blocked websites can be defined by yourself. Because I know that the time at 9 o'clock in the morning is when I need to focus the most, and after 10 o'clock in the evening, it doesn't make much sense for you to waste it. There is a limit to the high-intensity mental work of a person in a day. After a dozen tomatoes during the day, it changes to rest and recuperation at night. The efficiency of insisting on working and studying is actually not that high. So, I took the initiative to set such a blocking rule. In this way, I don't have to spend a dime of willpower, and I don't have to torture my poor self-control. Invisibly, I cut off the possibility of wasting my life several times a day. This is the power of system design.

1.4 Focus Skill 4 Use the 5-minute principle to defeat procrastination

The fourth skill is to use the 5-minute principle to defeat "Pomodoro procrastination". Many times, we know that "Pomodoro is good" and makes us more efficient, but we just procrastinate and don't open the tomatoes. Reality is so funny. On the way to defeating procrastination, we keep procrastinating.

At this time, there is a very small skill, which is super effective, that is, the "5-minute principle":

No matter what, as long as it is listed in your list and needs to be done, you should not think "whether I will do it or not". Instead, "Do it for 5 minutes first!"

After doing it for 5 minutes, you can choose to continue;

You can also choose to give up, or it is more fun to browse the phone.

But it doesn't matter. In this way, many people will find that they just don't dare to start. "Everything is difficult at the beginning."

Once you start doing it, even if it's only for 5 minutes, the anxiety and procrastination before doing it will disappear, and you will find that things are not so boring, even a little interesting, not so difficult, and even a little flow. Then, you will naturally stick to it.

To summarize briefly,

The 25 minutes of Pomodoro is a deliberate practice of concentration. And there are 4 tips to quickly enter the state of concentration: the bright line principle, creating a sense of ritual, using auxiliary tools to resist temptation, and using the 5-minute principle to defeat Pomodoro procrastination.

2. 5 minutes: 4 ways to rest to make you full of blood

The 25 minutes of Pomodoro make us like gods when we are focused; then, how should we spend the 5-minute rest time of the Pomodoro Technique?

The Beatles sang in the song, "sleep like a log", sleeping like a log. People who know how to rest can really work. Because the correct way of rest determines the distance between the real efficiency masters and ordinary people. Efficiency masters must master the internal laws of quickly and effectively restoring the body and mind to the best state. This is the most critical point in time management.

Athletes like Jordan can use the short halftime break of just a few minutes to completely empty their minds in a fierce game like a war, and restore their bodies and minds to the best state through a short break. They can even turn defeat into victory and reverse the entire battle situation.

In contrast, ordinary people, if they don’t know how to rest correctly, may lie on the sofa or bed after get off work, scrolling through their phones, social media, TV series, and games. Everyone works very hard and will "feel exhausted", but if you are exhausted by work, you will only choose to relax by "entertainment bingeing" such as crazy scrolling through your phone, watching TV series, playing games, and watching movies. It is very likely that you will get more and more tired in the end. After stopping, you will feel endless emptiness, and you will be extremely tired when you go to work the next day. Therefore, these so-called relaxations are actually entertainment and indulgence, not real anti-loosening methods, and cannot fill the inner void.

2.1 What can’t be done?

Based on the principle of "reverse thinking", in these 5 minutes, let’s talk about "what not to do" first, and then "what can be done". I used to say that,

When I decide not to read a book, that’s when I really start reading.

The same is true for the 5-minute break of Pomodoro. When I know that I’m taking a 5-minute break of Pomodoro, not doing anything is the beginning of what I’m going to do. In a word:

In addition to not overeating for entertainment and not taking advantage of every opportunity to entertain,

In addition, absolutely don’t do anything that burns your brain.

Specifically, during the 5-minute break, don’t do things that consume brain cells and willpower. That’s what you do during the 25-minute focused time.

The 5 minutes of Pomodoro are not for “hurrying up for entertainment”, but for resting our efficiency and focus after the break, and restoring productivity. So, don’t keep scrolling through Moments, and play a game in the 5-minute break. These entertainments are useless for restoring energy.

So, what are the recommended things to do during the 5-minute break? When I do Pomodoro, I often take these 4 ways of rest:

2.2 Resting method 1: Purely empty

The first one: Purely empty. Emptying is very simple. Just put down your phone, leave your computer, look out the window (when there are only tall buildings outside and no nature, just hold the small green plant on the table and look at it), drink some water, and go to the bathroom. This is very easy to understand.

2.3 Resting method 2: Doing chores

The second type: doing housework or chores at work. Friends must know that if there is one thing in the world that is eternal, it is housework. Because housework is fragmented and cannot be completely eliminated. It is best to turn it into a whole, rather than doing housework every time you see it, otherwise you will find that it will never be exhausted.

However, if you work and study at home, use the 5-minute break time of Pomodoro to turn the fragmented housework into a whole, that is, "batch processing", which is more efficient, and the housework will become less "hateful".

At work, the same is true for administrative trivia such as "posting invoices for reimbursement" that do not create value in themselves. Just like housework, change your mind when you are tired at work, or do it during the 5-minute break time of Pomodoro.

2.4 Resting method 3: stretching exercises

Third, stretching. You can also do some stretching exercises in 5 minutes, stretch your body, do eye exercises for yourself, and give your tired neck a simple massage. The recovery of body and energy is very important for maintaining the long-term concentration of the brain. Otherwise, the self-examination of the saints in the Gospel of Matthew about their "weak will" will appear:

The mind is willing, but the flesh is weak.

2.5 Resting method 4: Imitate the dead

Finally, I will introduce my "ultimate resting method": rest like a dead person.

When the intensity is the highest (the standard for drawing a line is to do more than 20 tomatoes a day), you need a most efficient way to rest. What is it? Very simple! In fact, it is "imitating the dead", which is the phrase sung by the Beatles, "sleep like a log",

Just lie on the ground, then adjust your breathing, calm your heart, and quickly restore your body and mind to the best state.

In this way, you can just lie on the ground or on the sofa for 5 minutes and completely empty your mind. At the end of the 5 minutes, you will be fully revived, jump up and do another tomato.