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The Science Of How To Form Habits

Most of us know that we have some bad habits that are standing in the way of us achieving what we want in life. We also know that we need to replace these with some empowering habits that will make the transition to a better life a lot easier.

This is all well and good but the problem is that breaking bad habits and forming new good ones is a tough thing to do. It requires dedication and effort that most people are not prepared to commit to.

If you really want to break your bad habits and form good ones that will change your life for the better then you need to understand how habits work. In this article we will look at the science behind habits so that you can understand them better and increase your chances of making a successful change in your life.

Habits Have Cues

All habits have cues. These are the things that trigger a specific habit within us. There are different categories of cues and the experts believe that they fall into five main categories which are:

Your emotional state
Specific times of the day
What you see
Where you are
The influence of others

A habit is a neurological loop in your subconscious mind. When the right cue appears it will automatically trigger the habit.

It is tough to change your response to these cues especially if you have habits that have been around for years. Most of the time we do not realize that our habits are being triggered by these cues.

There Is Always A Routine

As soon as you experience the right cue then you will go through a routine that means you will exhibit certain behavior or take specific actions. This is important because it provides you with the opportunity to replace a bad routine with a good routine.

Many psychological experts will tell you that it is far more effective to replace a bad routine with a good one than it is to attempt to totally eliminate a bad habit altogether.

This makes a lot of sense and makes the process of breaking your bad habits much easier if you replace the routine with something better. Habits have Rewards

All habits have a reward associated with them. You may not realize this but it is true. Each time you smoke a cigarette or eat junk food there is a reward attached to this. Smoking may make you feel relaxed for example. Even good habits have rewards such as cleaning your teeth makes your mouth and breath feel fresh.

You Crave Habits

Because you repeat your habits over and over you will receive your reward and then your brain will start to crave whatever the reward is. This craving strengthens the habit whether it is good or bad.

The craving is a positive thing for good habits because it makes the habit stick. On the flip side it is a negative for those bad habits because it will constantly nag at you to indulge in them.

You are now aware of the habit neurological loop that will help you to break any bad habits that you have and form new ones that are good for you. It is a matter of addressing the cues, routines and rewards to make the changes that you desire.

3 Phases Of Forming A Habit

People that are successful in life perform routines that support their success. You may have read that it takes approximately 21 days to form a new habit but there is more to it than that. A number of research studies have concluded that it actually takes people 66 days on average to form a new habit.

There is a process involved in forming new habits. It is not just a matter of doing something consistently for 66 days. If only it was that easy!

So, let’s dive further into what the three phases are to habit formation which will help you on your journey to forming the new habits that you desire.

1. Honeymoon Phase

Imagine meeting someone and then falling in love with them. The world seems a much better place after this doesn’t it? Every new day is exciting and you are prepared to do anything to make this new person in your life happy. You never want this feeling to end but in the majority of cases it does unfortunately.

Reality kicks in and things look different. You start to question whether you have made the right choice. The same can be said for forming a new habit. At the beginning you are very excited about what this new habit will do for you. You work hard at it and feel great about it.

Then suddenly you get past this honeymoon stage and things don’t look so great any more. It is now becoming a chore for you to keep your new habit going. Congratulations, you have just entered the critical stage.

2. Critical Stage

This is not called the critical phase for nothing. It is the time when reality really starts to kick in and you question whether all of the time and effort that you are spending on your new habit is really worth it.

Your motivation levels are at their lowest during this phase and if you don’t survive it then there is a real danger that your old bad habits will resurface and you will go back to your old ways.

You must successfully navigate your way through the critical phase to continue with your new habit and make it stick.

The best way to survive the critical stage is to do the following:

Be aware that you have entered the critical phase
Ask yourself the right questions to refocus and take control of your emotions
Visualize the big picture – how continuing with this new habit will change your life for the better in the future

3. Second Nature Phase

As you might expect, this phase means that your new habit has reached the stage of becoming second nature to you. This is a great place to be but you still need to be cautious here as you do not want to fall foul of these things that can put you back in the critical phase:

Getting discouraged
Having your new habit interrupted
Feeling that you have already done enough

Any one of these things can land you back in the critical stage. If you do end up back there then you need to keep fighting to get back in the second nature stage.

After that it is just a matter of carrying on until the new routine becomes an automatic habit.

You really need to work on your positive habits and to do that you will need to develop a strong success mindset and that is easier than you think; you may just need a few pointers to help you out along the way.

To that end, please check out the featured resource below as it features a free report that will help you to develop a strong mindset that can help propel you into the success you deserve. Download, read it and take action 😊

Use Blog Challenges To Coach New Online Marketers

If you’re an Internet marketer who teaches Internet marketing to others, it’s important to help the readers of your blog learn how to adapt to a blogging ritual seamlessly.

Blogging is one of those tasks that many new marketers jump into without understanding how it works. They know they need to blog (because all of the top successful marketers do), and maybe for a few days – or even weeks – they stick to it religiously.

They blog like clockwork, logging in every day, knowing just what they want to say. And then the day comes when it all fizzles out. One day they log in and they’re stumped.

They sit there staring at the screen, unable to decide what they’re going to blog about. Sometimes they start swiping other people’s content because they don’t want to lose the momentum of posting daily.

They might grab something from an article directory or buy some PLR content and use it as is. This is where they start getting lazy, not because they want to be, but because they’re simply lost on what topic to discuss.

Others don’t want to neglect their blog – but the formidable task of trying to juggle a myriad of Internet marketing items on their to do list prevents them from getting to their blog – they’ve backburnered it and soon it’s forgotten and stagnant.

You can host a blog challenge for your readers that will help them in any niche! Whether they’re marketing bloggers, or they have a blog on gardens, insomnia, or dating – your challenge will help them take action, stay committed and view you as a leader.

By the way, if you are serious and want to take your blogging to the next level, check out the Rapid Blogging Blueprint. This is a premium level training that takes you through each and every step of setting up your own highly profitable blog and profiting from it. You can check it out here.

OK, let’s crack on…

What Blogging Challenges Do Your Readers Suffer From?

You should be able to listen to your subscribers and see some common themes among them when they come to you with blog problems. If you don’t have subscribers yet (that you know of since many are lurkers), then you might have to read other blog comments or look in forums to see what issues people have.

Finding topics is a common problem for many bloggers. People sit there staring at their screen, or they go to someone else’s blog to see what they’re talking about.

They key is to help them learn how to find topics – how to dig up new slants and fresh ideas and give commentary on them.

Understanding how to review products is another basic issue for marketers who are inexperienced with blogging. They don’t know how to review products so that they will be interesting to blog readers.

Making an engaging connection is a big deal – and so many marketers falter with this. Everyone wants to see blog comments or get emails about how amazing their blog post was!

Monetizing their blog post could be an issue. You wouldn’t believe how many bloggers are sitting there wondering why their blog isn’t making money, when the only problem is, they forgot to add links!

Consistency is probably the number one problem, though. People get sidetracked and for some reason, their blog – what should be their “home on the ‘net” – is what usually suffers.

Preparing Your Blog Challenge Ahead Of Time

Hosting a blog challenge is a great way to get a ton of branding for your blog, as well as traffic and comments for it, too. You want to go into this well-prepared, not floundering right alongside your readers – they’re expecting you to guide them!

First, announce the date ahead of time. Get everyone geared up to participate. Have them sign up – either simply by announcing their participation in the comments section of your blog, or by having them sign up to your email autoresponder list.

You should give them approximately two to three weeks’ notice so that they can wrap up their projects or get organized. Sometimes they simply want to motivate themselves to participate, or be talked into it by fellow marketers.

Let them know what the basic challenge will be. Create a list of rules, but don’t make it so stringent that people feel like labeling themselves failures. You want to inspire them and encourage them to keep going even if they miss a blog post.

Map out your helpful blog posts that you’re going to create along the way. You will be blogging daily to give tips and ideas, share your own entry to the challenge, and create a space for them to discuss it and encourage each other.

Some people might want you to create a forum for the discussions. Keep it on your blog. As the host of the challenge, your blog will benefit from the traffic and conversations taking place.

Give them any tools and tutorials you think they’ll need. If your blog challenge is to have them get comments, then you might steer them towards something like Disqus and give a tutorial on how that works.

This is not only a good way to be a leader, but it can help you make affiliate sales of certain links for people’s blogs, like paid plugins or WordPress themes, for example.

Supporting Your Challengers

As the host, it’s your job to support the people who are following you and participating in your challenge. Now if you have hundreds of people, it might be more difficult – in that case, you can just encourage people to support each other.

Allow them to share their blog post link. You can let them leave it in the actual comment as a live link, use a tool like Disqus, or just have their name hyperlinked to their website.

Visit their blog post and see how they’re doing. If you have tips, you might provide those to them, but not in the blog comments – do it privately using their contact form or email.

Leave a comment for them to show them they have traffic and encourage comments and sharing by others. By the time the challenge is over, they will have a thriving community – many will stay and at the very least, it shows search engines and new visitors that this person has an active blog!

Check in with those who stray. When everyone signs up, make a list of the name and email of the people participating. If you notice someone falling by the wayside, shoot them a friendly email of support. Sometimes they just need to be nudged.

Challenge Idea #1: Encourage New Media Formats

Blogging isn’t just about text blog content, although that is the most prevalent for of blogging that there is.

You can host a challenge that urges participants to get used to multiple media formats.

You always want them to have text as a staple, but you might make an “Audio Blogging Challenge” or a “Video Blogging Challenge.”

This will get people out of their comfort zones, but it will help them learn how to cater to many of their subscribers across the board. When the challenge is finished, they’ll be able to use more than one format and switch things up for their audience.

Challenge Idea #2: 1-A-Day Affiliate Marketing Reviews

Because affiliate marketing can be so profitable through the use of a blog platform, it’s important that you help your readers learn how to master this.

When you review a product, you should personalize the review, share the specifications of the product, and add some consumer commentary.

For your affiliate blogging challenge, have some guideline steps like this:

Pick one product over $25 (or $50 or $100 or whatever)
Make sure it’s rated at least 4 stars
Write a review of at least 500 words per blog post
Each blog post should have specs, pros, cons, and consumer insight
Blog posts should have at least 2 hyperlinks to product (*Optional – 1 hyperlink to a top competitor product)

These kinds of details will help them from getting stuck trying to decide between one product and another. It also gives them guidance on the structure of the blog post.

Challenge Idea #3: Thought-Provoking Shareable Content

These are fantastic challenges to do on your blog. The concept of this challenge is pure 100% quality. You’re asking your readers to create blog posts that knock the socks off of their readers.

This isn’t about monetizing the exact blog post – but it can result in increased income because they gain a loyal following. This is definitely one you’ll want to give them time to map out a couple of weeks ahead of schedule.

This should be their very best work. It can be a combination of media formats, any length – or a length you require – but it should definitely provide lots of value for their own readers.

The goal here is to make sure they have their social networking buttons working. You want their visitors Tweeting, Google + sharing and Facebook sharing these blog posts because they’re that good.

Challenge Idea #4: Curated Blog Content

Curation is a buzzword in marketing circles, but it’s a fantastic way to build a blog readership! First, you need to explain to your readers what curation means. You don’t want them getting confused and swiping other people’s content and plagiarizing it.

Curation is when you act similar to how a museum curator acts – gathering pieces to represent a concept as a whole. The curator then provides commentary about the pieces to pull it all together.

Your blog curators won’t be lifting entire pieces from other bloggers. They’ll be taking one or two sentences as quotes and linking back to the original blogger. It doesn’t have to be a blog post that they’re curating, either.

They can curate a video from YouTube, a news story, or an audio file quote. Make sure they understand that it’s not about sharing someone else’s work – it’s about adding their own insight about that work and giving the original creator credit with a link.

Curation doesn’t always have to be positive. It can be a negative curation, where they’re showing poor examples of something. Just make sure they understand they might get some heat for this from the first author.

Challenge Idea #5: One Idea Fits Everyone

This is a good twist, but only if everyone is in the same niche. If you’re teaching other marketers, then this would be a viable possibility. If you have one in the gardening niche, another in dating and one in smoking cessation, this won’t work.

So let’s say you’re teaching the marketing niche. You would want to create an editorial calendar for the challenge. One each day (actually the day before), you would announce the topic for the next day.

Everyone in the challenge would write about that topic. It’s interesting to see what slants people have on issues. So for instance, you might have these on your list:

Top 5 Conversion Tips
Review of the Plugin ThriveLeads
Is JVZoo Better Than ClickBank?

Whatever topic you want to choose – see what the slants turn out to be after they are published. Don’t tell them what to write, just give them the basics. Your group will love being in these blog challenges and seeing their productivity soar!

By the way, if you want to know more about blogging the right way, why not check out the featured resource below for a free blogging report. Download, read it and take action 😊

Roadblocks That Get In The Way Of Motivation

Though people are all different, we all have one thing in common – roadblocks that get in the way of what we really want from life. Roadblocks stop some people from ever making a change, but they motivate others to keep on going to find a way to what they want, regardless of the roadblock.

You might have one of these roadblocks or you might experience more than one of them. A major roadblock to change is fear. When things change, it ushers in differences that can make us afraid.

We’re afraid to leave behind the bad job for fear we won’t like the new one – fear that we might not fit in as well. Remember though, that one of the acronyms for fear is False Evidence Appearing Real.

Your fears are usually based on what if myths – and they almost always never come to pass. Don’t let fear cause you to sit on the sidelines of change. Another roadblock that gets in the way is a lack of knowledge.

It’s hard to make changes when you’re not sure exactly how to go about those changes. You might be branching out into an area that’s completely beyond your scope of knowledge at the present time.

Remember that what you don’t know can be learned. Use educational resources as your catalyst for change and success. Strive for new levels of insight that you previously didn’t have.

Thinking that you simply can’t add another thing to your already full life keeps many people stuck where they are. Making changes requires work. So many people see the effort as not worth the payoff – and that’s a mistake.

This belief is what keeps you rooted to that job that you hate, to those messy finances, or to that relationship that’s sucking the life right out of you. Learning better time management skills can be a catalyst for a better life as you clear out things that are a waste of time and make room for what offers the most benefits.

Being just comfortable enough where you are can be a roadblock to motivate you to change. You’re not 100% happy, but you’re “happy enough.” All this means is that you settled for a life that keeps you locked in your comfort zone.

You’re trading a full life for one that’s half empty – because if you’re not 100% satisfied, then something is missing. That something may be the very thing that you always wanted, but because you were “happy enough,” you’ll never reach it.

Visualization can be a catalyst for the changes you need to make. Picture the next level of success in every area of your life – finances, career satisfaction, relationships, health – everything that matters most to you.

Focus on how it could be improved and then make a game plan to get you there. If you block out those thoughts in an effort to stay content, you’ll never know what you could have made out of your life if you’d give it a chance.

Wanting everything to be perfect is a huge roadblock to motivation. It’s here where people stall out. They want the new situation to be perfect before they attempt any changes.

They want the new job to have everything in place. They don’t want to take the chance that they’ll make a switch and find it’s not what they wanted. These are people who wait for the “perfect” relationship before getting into one.

Perfectionism is the killer of change because what you see in your mind as perfection doesn’t translate that way in life. That’s because there are no perfect scenarios in a life that’s lived to the fullest.

There are experiences to encounter – and not one of them will be perfect. That’s okay. Perfectionism kills progress. You don’t want to be sitting on the sidelines waiting to get into the game of life.

The number one roadblock that keeps too many people from letting a catalyst be their motivation is the fear of failure. They falsely believe that they haven’t failed yet because they haven’t even tried – so they’re safe.

But whether they realize it or not, they have failed. They’re choosing to stay stagnant in a lesser life than what they dreamed of. That, in itself, is a form of failure.

Another roadblock happens when people wait for change rather than seeking change. They wait for the perfect joint venture partner to come to them instead of seeking one out, because that requires putting themselves on the line.

They wait to see if the person they’re in a relationship with is going to treat them better, rather than speaking up about what they want and deserve. They avoid tough situations and tough conversations because they’re waiting for everything to work out on its own.

Change isn’t something that happens on a whim. It’s something that you make happen. You have to find the motivation within yourself to make that change. And it’s uncomfortable at first.

That’s okay. Take that sign of discomfort as a compliment. It’s proving to you that you’re taking action and bettering your life, even in the face of fear or uneasiness.

Motivation requires a strong mindset and it is an unfortunate fact that many of us simply aren’t born with a strong success mindset.

The good news is that you can do something about it and rewire your brain and change the way you focus on things and what you focus on.

Humans appear to be wired to focus on the negative but that doesn’t help you to thrive and succeed.

You really need to work on your focus and to grow and nurture a strong success mindset and it is easier than you think; you may just need a few pointers to help you out along the way.

Convertri vs ClickFunnels: Which Is Really Better?

This topic has been hotly debated over and over by marketers and no one is closer to the answer. The truth of the matter is that it depends on your needs and preferences.

In this article, we’ll discuss the strengths and weakness of both brands and you can decide for yourself which one is best for you.

ClickFunnels, which was created by Russell Brunson, has achieved cult-like status. It’s used by many big-name marketers to generate millions of dollars in sales. The affiliates swear by it because they’re making a killing in commissions.

Since most people think that bigger is better, the ClickFunnels brand keeps gaining popularity because it’s already huge… and everyone loves a winner. It’s akin to Kim Kardashian being famous for being famous.

On the flip side, we have Convertri. While it is gaining popularity, it’s nowhere close to being as popular as ClickFunnels is. But does that mean it’s not as good?

Not necessarily so. If we were to use an analogy, ClickFunnels will be like an infantry battalion that’s huge and wipes out the enemy wherever it goes.

Convertri, however, is like a small elite group of commandos that’s fast, silent and gets the job done without anyone even knowing they were there.

Now let’s look at a few points and see how both brands fare…

Speed

Without a doubt, sales pages created with Convertri load faster than pages created with ClickFunnels. This is what we meant by the commando approach. Convertri is extremely swift. Even their slogan states, “Faster funnels, higher conversions”.

And that’s hitting the nail on the head. Faster pages hold the reader’s attention and translate to higher sales. In this area, ClickFunnels could use some improvement.

If you wish, you could create a similar page in both ClickFunnels and Convertri and test the page load speeds here: https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/

The results will prove our point.

Pricing

Convertri is definitely more affordable when compared to ClickFunnels. At $69 a months, Convertri is roughly half the price of ClickFunnels, which is $97 a month. Once you hit 100 pages with ClickFunnels, the price jumps up to $297 a month and this can be expensive for many beginner marketers.

If you’re a beginner or intermediate marketer, you’ll be able to save more money using Convertri. You’ll get 500 pages for the standard plan and even the highest plan at 10,000 pages, only costs $166, which is $131 cheaper than ClickFunnels. That is a huge savings for you.

Do note that ClickFunnels does have a lot more features when you get the $297 plan, but most marketers will never really use the multitude of features provided.

All they really need is the page/funnel builder. At the end of the day, you’ll need to decide if the extra features are worth the monthly $131.

Features

When it comes to ease of use, Convertri wins here. With a ‘drag and drop’ editor, it’s easier to use than ClickFunnels block-based editor. Convertri also has an undo button that makes it easy to fix mistakes.

ClickFunnels doesn’t have this undo option. The only way to fix a mistake will be to restore a previously saved version of the page. This is not only a hassle, but the biggest bugbear that ClickFunnels’ users currently have.

Unlike Convertri, ClickFunnels claims to be an all-in-one solution. It’s more than just a funnel builder. It comes with a CRM and autoresponder, membership database management and many other advanced features. So, it beats Convertri here.

However, it’s best to keep your autoresponder and your funnel builder separate. If you put all your eggs in one basket and the software goes down, all your related components, autoresponder, etc. will be down too.

Ultimately, you’ll need to decide if you want to give full-control of your business to one brand, or you want to keep the different entities separate. Separation gives you flexibility and more security. ‘All in one’ solutions are easier to use, but more risky.

Reliability

Based on reports from marketers, ClickFunnels seems to go down every now and then.

While this is normal, and to some extent inevitable, it still can result in thousands of dollars lost in sales. So far, we’ve not seen any instance of Convertri being down.

Either way, both are reliable companies. So, you’re safe with them… but just that little bit safer with Convertri.

For Affiliates

When it comes to affiliate recruitment, ClickFunnels is a goliath. Convertri has a long way to go to catch up.

However, that also means that you have less competition when promoting Convertri. It’ll be easier to promote Convertri successfully, and your affiliate link will be in your dashboard.

Your commissions will be lower because the pricing is lower, but there are masses of new and beginner marketers who will be better off with Convertri, because it’s a cheaper alternative that’s just as good (better in some cases).

To wrap things up, while both funnel builders are good, we believe that Convertri is the better one. There’s a lot less hype about it, but it has been delivering over and over ever since it hit the market.

There’s a very active Convertri support group where users offer suggestions, and many have been implemented in the software. This is a company that listens to its customers.

While it may be quietly performing in ClickFunnels’ shadow for the time being, this brand has a lot of promise and will be just as big in the future. For the time being, Convertri is faster, easier to use and way more affordable. Definitely the better choice.

>> Check Out Convertri Here

Of course, creating a great page is only part of the puzzle. If you want to have great results you need to be able to write highly converting copy which is difficult for many people as there are so many mistakes that can have a dramatic effect on conversions.

To help you avoid these mistakes, take a look at the featured resource below where you can download a copy of a free report, Copywriting Blunders, so you will be forewarned. Download, read it and take action 😊

Take Time To Gain Perspective And Plan

Lining everything up and getting it done isn’t something that as easy as it sounds because the full speed ahead method doesn’t usually work on a project. You might be someone who likes to choose your project, write out all the steps, then try to plow through from start to finish.

While that sounds great in theory, you can miss things along the way. Or you can end up not doing the best job that you could have done with a system check in place. When you’re working on a project, you need to pause to make sure you have the right perspective.

By strategizing, you can make your project have the best possible outcome. When you’re working on something, take the time to think carefully about what you’re doing. Look at what you’ve done so far.

Check to see how what you’ve worked on lines up with the goals you’ve set. This will allow you to see if anything is veering off track. It’s better to catch that periodically throughout working on the project rather than reaching the end and find that you’ve missed a lot of important steps or completely missed your goal.

Look at the work that you’ve done so far. Study it to see how you’ve performed. This can show you if you’re struggling in any part of the project. It can also allow you to check to see if what you’ve done so far meets your expectations.

Or see if it meets consumer expectations. Creating anything is a two-fold step of having the vision in your mind, then bringing it to life. What can happen is that what you see in your vision can be totally different once you start working on it because you might find that you’ve inadvertently gone in a different direction.

While this might not be a bad direction, if it doesn’t line up with your vision, then it’s not in line with your goals and you have to steer things back onto the right track. When you take the time to gain perspective, this can help you see if improvements need to be made at specific points.

For example, when working on something, give yourself check-in points at certain places in the work. Some people check in at the third of the way mark while others check the work or results when they’re halfway done.

By having a strategy in place to check your work, you’ll be able to tweak what’s not working or to make improvements on what is working. When you pause to gain perspective, this can help to give you new strength for working on the project.

It can also allow you to make sure all of your goals line up. Or, if a goal you’ve previously set needs to be changed or brought back into focus, you’ll be able to make a change at that time.

Now you have your strategy in place you want to be as productive as possible so you can implement it quickly and see results, and this is where the Pomodoro technique comes in.

Using The Pomodoro Technique For Increased Focus And Creativity

If you have trouble allowing little distractions to pull you away from your work several times a day, the Pomodoro Technique might be a great fit for you. This is a great time management method.

This technique is also great for those who have work that could take an unlimited amount of time like if you were writing a book. The Pomodoro Technique has four basic steps.

The first step is to simply pick a task from your to-do list. The second step is to set a timer for twenty-five minutes and you would only work on that task for the allotted amount of time.

This means you wouldn’t pause to check social media or have any distractions open in the background. It also means that you wouldn’t switch to a task that you find easier or feel more urgent.

Once your twenty-five minutes are up, the next step in the method is to take a five-minute break. After the break, you would then choose a new task, or return to your first task if it wasn’t complete and work for another twenty-five minutes.

Each task is referred to as your pomodoro. Once you’ve done four pomodoros, or after four of your twenty-five minute sessions, the final step is to take a break that is at least fifteen minutes long.

This final break shouldn’t exceed thirty minutes. This technique has become so popular because it helps you break down complex projects into ones with manageable amounts of time.

It can be hard to do research for five hours, but it becomes easier when you do it in twenty-five-minute sprints. You can also put more than one pomodoro in a session. So for example, if you have some simpler tasks like folding laundry or paying the doctor bill you can put them together in one session.

You’ll be surprised at how quickly you can cross things off your to-do list when you use this technique. If you’re in the middle of a pomodoro and you remember you need to do something else, don’t stop.

Simply write the forgotten task down and continue working. For this technique to work, it’s important that you don’t stop during the middle of one. Some interruptions—such as needing to pick kids up—are unavoidable.

If this happens during one of your pomodoros, simply take that time as your break, and start a new pomodoro after the interruption is over. You may find it useful to plan your pomodoros in advance to head off interruptions.

Divide your blocks of time into sections and write next to these sections what you’re going to accomplish during your pomodoro. You can also write down how many pomodoros you think it will take you, or how many you would like it to take you and then strive to reach that goal.

It’s important when planning your pomodoros not to assign yourself so much that you can’t cross everything off the list. This will leave you feeling like you failed or that it didn’t work at the end of the day. Start with the more pressing and urgent tasks, and if you have more time, then work on the smaller things.

As you probably already know, having a strong mindset is critical to any attempt to plan and stay focused, so click on the featured resource below to get a free report on how to develop a strong mindset. Download, it read and take action 🙂