Timed writing
Wednesday, July 24, 2013 at 4:00AM in Inspiration From Ryan Casey, a productivity tip that just might make you an author:
Basically, the Pomodoro Technique is this: you set a timer for twenty-five minutes and you do whatever task it is you want to do (in our case, writing). You work solidly on that task for twenty-five minutes, and then when the time is up, you take a five minute break, no matter what. Nip to the loo, refill your glass of water — Pomo’ don’t discriminate.
Then, you repeat the cycle again. After four full cycles, you take a longer break.
Can you see how beneficial this is to writing? I usually start writing somewhere around ten-thirty in the morning. I complete four cycles and then take a lunch break. On a typical day, I’ll have four-thousand words written by the time I take lunch. On a good day, I’ll have hit 5k already.
The best thing about it is, because it breaks your work up into smaller chunks, you don’t feel as drained as you would do if you’d spent several solid hours. My productivity method used to be this: wait for the clock to hit the hour and then write until that hour is up. But it was a poor method, in hindsight — I regularly got distracted and my words per hour were nowhere near as high as I know they can be.
Another bonus? Maybe you do only have twenty-five minutes per day, but with the Pomodoro Technique, you can turn those twenty-five minutes into a goldmine of productivity. Do you have twenty-five minutes per day? Then you can finish a novel in eighty days. How’s that sound?
Read the rest here!
A novel in eighty days sounds pretty damn great to me. I've been using this technique at my day job and I've got to tell you—it works. Not only does it work, but you will end your day feeling very accomplished.
I can't wait to apply to it my morning writing ritual.
Reader Comments (2)
I tried this tonight and wrote as much in 25 minutes as it usually takes me an hour or more to do. And fear not, this post is occurring during my mandatory 5 minute break. Thanks for passing along the tip!
That's great! Yeah, I've found that if I tell myself "You are writing for the next hour," then I will certainly be checking Facebook sometime around minute 15. But when there's a timer, I see that there's 10 minutes left on it and I think, "Oh hell, I guess I can work for another 10 minutes..."