The Pomodoro Technique - Francesco Grillo

•  Employing easy-to-use, unobtrusive tools reduces the complexity of applying the Technique while favoring continuity
• Many time management techniques fail because they subject the people who use them to a higher level of added complexity
• Time-boxing
• Pause
• A chance to do something good for your health will help you to do your best during the next pomodoro
• its not a good idea to engage in activities that call for any significant mental effort
• Using the remaining portion of the Pomodoro to review or repeat what you've done, make small improvements and note down what you've learned 
• (basically: reflection)
• At the end of the day, the completed pomodoros can be transferred in a hard-copy archive
• Self-observation and decision-making aimed at process improvement. You can ask yourself how many pomodoros a week you spend on working acitivities and on explorative activitities, or how many Pomodoros you do on an average day of the week etc

• Every time you feel a potential interruption coming on, put an apostrophe on the sheet where you record your Pomodoros
• Intensify your determination to finish the current Pomodoro
• If a Pomodoro absolutely has to be interruped - void the current Pomodoro. Then put a dash. The next Pomodoro will go better!
• To be aware of the number and type of internal and external interruptions. Negotiate them and reschedule them
• Set aside one Pomodoro a day to take care of urgent interruptions
• Successfully delay these Pomodoros as far as possible
• Gradually cut down on the number of Pomodoros used for organizing the interruptions

• A timetable delineates the separation between work and free time. ... This leisure time is fuel for our minds. Without it, creativity, interest, and curiosity are lost.
• A timetable measure the results of the day. ... If time runs out and these activities arent done, we try to understand what went wrong.
• So you tell yourself: "Today I'll work late to make up for lost time." heroism and guilt makes you breach the limit set by the timetable. ... performance is ineffective tonight, then tomorrow night, and the night after. The more the timetable is systematically prolonged, the more overall results will diminish. Guild intensifies.
• A dangerous vicious circle

• best case scenario
• He might use this Pomodoro to look over all the things he did the day before, to skim over the Activitiy Inventory and fill in the To Do Today Sheet, ... 
• That everything on his desk is in place and ready, and tidies up if its not
• He starts feeling tired. He still has a few more Pomodoros to go. He wants to get a good rest, and he tries to detach as best he can by taking a little walk.

• The Pomodoro represents an abstaction of time
• Time boxing concept
• time running backwards
• generate positive tension (eustress)
• capable of facilitating the decision-making process
• assert yourself and accomplish activities
• The passage of time is no longer perceived as negative, but positive
• opportunity to improve
• rapidly reorganize
• feeling ofanxiety is assuaged
• enhanced consciousness, sharper focus on the here and now, clearer mind in deciding your next move. 
• The result is higher productivity
• Breaking down activities
• less complex
• deliver incremental value
• Frequent breaks are essential, More lucis, conscious and effective mental capacity.
• But the break really has to be a break.

success = Mental toughness

1. Define what mental toughness means for you.

• going one month without missing a workout
• going one week without eating processed or packaged food
• delivering your work ahead of schedule for two days in a row
• meditating every morning this week
• Whatever it is, be clear about what you’re going after. Mental toughness is an abstract quality, but in the real world it’s tied to concrete actions. You can’t magically think your way to becoming mentally tough, you prove it to yourself by doing something in real life.

2. Mental toughness is built through small physical wins. Choose to do the tenth rep when it would be easier to just do nine. Choose to create when it would be easier to consume. Choose to ask the extra question when it would be easier to accept. Prove to yourself — in a thousand tiny ways — that you have enough guts to get in the ring and do battle with life.

3. Mental toughness is about your habits, not your motivation.

It’s about building the daily habits that allow you to stick to a schedule and overcome challenges and distractions over and over and over again.

Mental toughness comes down to your habits. It’s about doing the things you know you’re supposed to do on a more consistent basis. It’s about your dedication to daily practice and your ability to stick to a schedule.

https://jamesclear.com/mental-toughness

30 years training to create in 30 seconds

As the story goes, Picasso was walking though the market one day when a woman spotted him. She stopped the artist, pulled out a piece of paper and said, “Mr. Picasso, I am a fan of your work. Please, could you do a little drawing for me?”

Picasso smiled and quickly drew a small, but beautiful piece of art on the paper. Then, he handed the paper back to her saying, “That will be one million dollars.”

“But Mr. Picasso,” the woman said. “It only took you thirty seconds to draw this little masterpiece.”

“My good woman,” Picasso said, “It took me thirty years to draw that masterpiece in thirty seconds.”

 

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In any creative endeavor you have to give yourself permission to create junk. There is no way around it. Sometimes you have to write 4 terrible pages just to discover that you wrote one good sentence in the second paragraph of the third page.

Creating something useful and compelling is like being a gold miner. You have to sift through pounds of dirt and rock and silt just to find a speck of gold in the middle of it all. Bits and pieces of genius will find their way to you, if you give yourself permission to let the muse flow.

 

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Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work.
—Chuck Close

Amateurs create when they feel inspired. Professionals create on a schedule.

Finish something. Anything. Stop researching, planning, and preparing to do the work and just do the work. It doesn't matter how good or how bad it is. You don't need to set the world on fire with your first try. You just need to prove to yourself that you have what it takes to produce something.

There are no artists, athletes, entrepreneurs, or scientists who became great by half-finishing their work. Stop debating what you should make and just make something.

Practice Self-Compassion

Everyone struggles to create great art. Even great artists.

When I write, I feel like an armless legless man with a crayon in my mouth.
—Kurt Vonnegut

Share Your Work

Share your work publicly. It will hold you accountable to creating your best work. It will provide feedback for doing better work. And when you see others connect with what you create, it will inspire you and make you care more.

 

How to Find Your Creative Genius

Finding your creative genius is easy: do the work, finish something, get feedback, find ways to improve, show up again tomorrow. Repeat for ten years. Or twenty. Or thirty.

Inspiration only reveals itself after perspiration. 

habits of great thinkers - personal observations

Very focused People who product great results. what do they do? My observations?

- They work with pencils
- They drink tea

Do you agree? Did you also observe it? What is the reason?

Where do you have your best ideas?

Where do you have your best ideas?

Never (!) at work.




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Shower, car, ...

habits

from the ebook "mastering creativity" from james clear

"ditch the dream and be a doer, not a dreamer"

Earn the chance to be lucky because (...) keep showing up.

you just have to keep moving forward. you just have to keep doing something, seizing the next opportunity, staying open to trying something new. it doesn't have to fit your vision of the perfect job or the perfect life. perfect is boring and dreams are not real. just ... do.

we al have some typ of genius inside of us. the only way to release it is to work on it.

no single act will uncover more powers than forcing yourself to create consistently

because you can't predict your success, the best strategy is to produce as much work as possible, which will provide more opportunities to hit the bullseye and create something meaninful

sometimes you'll create something good. sometimes you'll create something useless. but no matter what, you should always be creating

its the mastering of habits that leads to success, not some mythical spark of genius

habits and schedules are important because they free our minds.

if you waste your resources trying to decide when or where to work, you'll impede your capacity to do the work. the brain doesn't need to waste any energy deciding what to do next. the key to any good ritual is that it removes the need to make a decision

you have to give yourself permission to grind through the occasional days of below average work because it"s the price you have to pay to get to excellent work

The schedule is the system that makes your goals a reality

• if you don't set a schedule for yourself then your only option is to rely on motivation
• if your workout doesn't have a time when it usually occurs, then each day you'll wake up thinking "I hope i feel motivated to exercise today"
• if you set a schedule for any task and start sticking to it, there will be days when you feel like quitting. when you're at the gym, there will be sets that you don't feel like finishing. But stepping up when its annoying or painful or draining to do so, thats what makes you a pro (analogue: while running and a mountain comes: "Thank you for this additional training")
• becoming a pro is about making your priorities a reality
• making time for what matters to you

How to become a pro

1. decide what you want to be good at (this is fundamentally different from the other approach: "Set yourself a goal" like loose 10 kilos or earn x thud bucks)
2. set a schedule for your actions (whats working good at the moment. consistent waking up at 6 am, then read 20 pages, then do workout)
3. Stick to the schedule for a week, and then the next week,... (don't think about eternity or years...). Don't be a writer, be writing. 

the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. do a huge volume of work. put yourself o na deadline so that every week or every month you know you're going to finish one story. it is only by going through a volume of work that the work you're making will be as good as your ambitions

you need to take the decision making out

Every monday and thursday i write a new article / even if it is inconvenient

once i begin writing, its much easier for me to power through and finish. this is basically newtons first law. objects in motion tend to stay in motion. and that means getting started is he hardest part.

the most important thing isn't to create something world/changing, but simply to create!!!

When the world presents you with something interesting or frustrating or curious, choose to do something about it. Choose to be a creator!

mail vs communication

"I still believe the best form of communication is talking. I know this is very antiquated. The most common email people get from me is two words: Call me."

from fastcompany.com