Take Time To Gain Perspective And Plan

stay focused 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

stay focused on your goal

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 🙂