Day 14: Learning Technique 2: Pomodoro

Today we discuss learning technique #2, the Pomodoro technique, which is sequence of steps to help you hack your productivity and make efficient time of your learning. You will learn what this technique is, the science behind it, why you should use it, and finally how you can apply it to accelerate your learning.

Resources for this lesson:

• Transcripts
• Worksheet
• List of Scientific References

Summary

What is the Pomodoro Technique?

The Pomodoro technique is it really a sequence of steps to help you make an efficient time of your learning. These steps are:

1. Prepare to study or work, removing all distractions around your learning environment.
2. Set a 25 minute timer.
3. During those 25 minutes, focus intently on what you're learning or the work that you're doing.
4. After 25 minutes you take a five minute break.
5. Repeat as needed, starting another 25 minute cycle.

Why it matters: As much as we would like to, we can not sustain focus forever. We need to work intently and then reward ourselves with a short break so that our study is efficient.

What does the science say?

By setting aside specific amounts of time, like the 25 minutes in a Pomodoro, it allows you time of focused attention, giving your brain practice and focusing without disruption.

Short mental breaks, like the 5 minutes after Pomodoro, are ideal to allow you to transfer what you've learned into your long-term memory, clearing your mind for new learning.

This technique also helps with your motivation because you anticipate the reward of that five minute break and it keeps you motivated while you're going through that 25 minutes cycle.

• If you struggle with motivation, it's much easier to commit and recommit yourself to short bursts of dedicated study rather than an endless study.
• You learn a repeatable process that you can do over and over again, making you focus more on that process rather than the goal or outcome of what you're learning in the long run.
• After about 20 minutes, activities you don't want to do causing brain pain [1] in the insular cortex begins to subside.

Why should you use it?

Having too prolonged of a focus doesn't give your brain enough time to offload the new material you're learning into the long-term memory.

• In which case, any studying you're doing on top of them in material that you're learning becomes less effective.
• In addition, specific areas of the brain can tire when you use them for too long, and this leads to something called cognitive exhaustion [2].

Short learning sessions and five to 10 minute breaks makes learning less of a drag and easier to get through.

How do you use it?

The basic process is:

1. Sit down where you'll be studying or working in removing any possible distractions. Remember, we talked about setting up the optimal learning environments.
2. Set a timer for 25 minutes. You can simply use the timer on your phone or some other timer app. They have lots of Pomodoro apps available, or even just a mechanical timer.
3. Dive in and study or work on something as Tenley as you can. For those 25 minutes.
4. Reward yourself for about five to 10 minutes at the end of the Pomodoro. You can just sit there and close your eyes and relax, take a short little walk, get a glass of water, pet your dog.
5. Repeat this process as appropriate.

For example, let's say you're studying something for two hours. You can break this up into four cycles of Pomodoro technique.

Note: the 25 minute limit and five minute break is somewhat arbitrary. Some people may like doing 52 minutes and taking a break for 17 minutes, which has been shown to be highly productive.

For more effectiveness, spend a few minutes of your break, looking away from what you're studying and trying to actively recall what you just learned.

• We learned in the last technique, this is one of the most powerful ways to both remember and understand new information.

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Activity

Try this technique for yourself. Pick some topic you want to learn about. Then begin learning about that topic by engaging in a Pomodoro session for 25 minutes. Then take a five minute break and during that five minute break, try and actively recall some of the things that you just learned.

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Skill Lesson Mastered

Demonstrate mastery of the knowledge and skills presented in this lesson by applying it to the above activity. If, and only if, you have a full understanding and have mastered the knowledge and skills presented in this lesson, select the next lesson in the navigation.