The 'pomodoro' technique might sound like a weird name for a way to stay productive, but it's simple. Pomodoro means tomato in Italian and the Italian man that came up with this time management concept in the 1980s used a tomato-shaped timer to carry it out. Hence, the not-so-unsual name, now there's a little context.
For this technique, you set a 25-minute timer to completely focus on a task and every time it goes off, you get a 5-minute break. If you end up doing four of these in a row, totalling two hours, you get a longer 15-30 minute break before you start again.
Now, I work at home so these focused intervals are a great way to tell myself I'm going to work distraction-free for a certain amount of time and then enjoy a little break, entirely guilt-free.
But while I've only ever used it for work or study, I thought why not try it for cleaning? I'm a big fan of finding decluttering techniques to get the job done and I've gotten into a rhythm of doing short bursts of tidying/cleaning. So, why not time it and reward myself? Here's what happened when I tried it out and why I recommend it for anyone in a cleaning slump, or partial to procrastination.
How to use the pomodoro technique for cleaning
The 'pomodoro' technique is focused on maximum productivity. To do a task well, it hypothesises that if you carve out 25-minute blocks of focused attention with 5-minute breaks in-between, you'll do the task much better.
And I love to gamify the way I do things, so having a timer for cleaning up my house is a perfect way to make it, dare I say, a bit fun? With the promise of a little bit of time to step back and take a break, it's supposed to be much easier to apply yourself in the time you've designated just for cleaning.
How it went
I've used the 'pomodoro' technique when studying for exams, I've used it when I'm trying to get work done. So, why not try it for cleaning? It seems like a trick I've been missing out on for far too long. But, what's it like in practise?
While I do a little bit of cleaning every day to stay on top of it, there are some tasks I definitely put off because I know they need more of my attention. Like sorting out the pile of abandoned clothes gathering at the bottom of my closet or the box under my bed that I use for important documents, but has become some sort of horrible dumping ground for old mail.
It's these tasks that I decided to use the 'pomodoro' technique on, well, probably four pomodoros by the time I'm done with it. No, I didn't buy a tomato timer, although I kind of wish I had. The good old-fashioned phone timer came to the rescue, though I had to make sure it was kept far away from me so I didn't feel some sudden urge to randomly scroll in my 25-minutes of distraction-free time.
It's actually surprising how fast 25-minutes passes when you're not doing anything else but the task at hand.
It's actually surprising how fast 25-minutes passes when you're not doing anything else but the task at hand. Although it shouldn't be that surprising since I can sink 25-minutes into scrolling on my phone without achieving a thing. Now, I don't think I could use the 'pomodoro' technique every time I clean, 25-minutes isn't always necessary, but it absolutely helped when I had a specific task in mind.
Suddenly, the abandoned clothes had made their way onto my bed, I'd sorted through them. Then, I got to take a 5-minute break. Then I started trying some on, putting some in a box for donating, or hanging the ones I wanted to keep back up. Then, another break.
By having those moments where I was allowed to stop, but feeling like I'd actually earned it, was genius. It's far too easy these days to doom scroll when you're avoiding a task. And yes, I had to keep my phone away from me to make sure I didn't fall into the distraction trap, but I got a lot more done than I'd ever do. Maybe next time, I'll get a proper little tomato timer.
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