Good advice! The kitchen timer has been my method of choice for managing my time for years - one I learned from my mother who lived her life by a white Lux Minute Minder when I was growing up. In fact, it wound up being the subject of a short guide/manifesto I wrote in 2011 entitled It Takes An Egg Timer, A Guide To Creating The Time For Your Life that you can find on Amazon. http://amzn.to/1RgxyoE My method is 20 minute intervals for the task oriented stuff - naps included - and 60 for project work.
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I've been flirting with this idea, and I see it can be realized. Thank you. I like the "Prufrockian haze." I don't want my whole retirement to be like that.
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I've used a timer for years for all the reasons in this article, and for a serial procrastinator, it is a lifesaver. I've found that I apparently have a sixth sense for time......I often get up and head for the timer to shut it off seconds before the alarm goes off! ( I use a Polder electronic timer).
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I've been living my life in 30 minute increments (barring bedtime) ever since my husband died at 44 15 years ago. I am now debt free, luckily able to retire whenever I choose, travel widely, and even have a side business (real estate empire... ha ha) -- four condos I rent in Texas: Round Rock (20 minutes north of Austin) and San Antonio. Time is money and I suggest the 30 minute model. Leaves time to get up and walk around (fix another drink?) which is what experts suggest anyway! Cheers for years!
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Thank you for rescuing my disappearing attention span from the Internet with a simple, mechanical kitchen timer. Bravo!
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How funny! I use a timer for the opposite reason - to get me up off my desk chair once per hour and go up and down the stairs or outside for a moment, because it's not healthy to sit for long and I easily lose track of time when engrossed in a task.
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This is hilarious and so on target. I forgot how useful a timer could be and you reminded me. I just started using one again upon reading your article and, in fact, just finished a report that I wrote during my 50 minute work period, iPhone timer at my side (now on a 10 minute break, writhing this). I, too, am that over caffeinated squirrel who used up a lot of energy deciding whether, and how, to get off task. Thank you!!!
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I have used timers for my personal time management for years and I highly recommend using them. They really help and they free your mind up until it beeps, they really are useful. Great article, no need for more apps, just get a simple kitchen timer (or 2 or 3).
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Another tip: To reduce eye strain when working with a monitor, "Every 20 minutes, look for 20 seconds at something 20 feet away." If I set the timer in the kitchen, then I have to get up and move to turn it off -- a bonus for limiting the amount of time spent sitting in one stretch.
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You had to order a kitchen timer from Amazon? They are available at every supermarket and dollar store and Kmart and Walmart and probably at Rite Aid and Walgreen's too. But you had to have it shipped to your house. Already your credibility has disappeared. Poof.
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Wonderfully written. Thanks! I too am of the measuring class.
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Recent to freelancing I caught myself in a 3 hour Facebook rabbit hole after years of public disdain for it. It actually frightened me. Thanks for the tip.
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This is the best line I have read all frittered away morning.
"Without my timer, I am apparently inclined to fritter mine away with all the prudence of an overcaffeinated squirrel."
Time to re-activate my timer. Thank for the reminder.
"Without my timer, I am apparently inclined to fritter mine away with all the prudence of an overcaffeinated squirrel."
Time to re-activate my timer. Thank for the reminder.
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I can't function without my timer, or, timers, to be exact. I have one in the kitchen, one at the worktable and one that is more or less portable and follows me around the house. I use my phone alarm when I'm out and about. I set them to get me into a task I'd like to avoid, and to limit a task that would swallow my day.
For the have-to-get-done tasks, I commit to a set time, promising I can reassess when the alarm goes off. I typically continue beyond the set time, even if I don't get everything done.
When I'm at something I consider play, I do the same thing. I can reassess. It's a relief.
For the have-to-get-done tasks, I commit to a set time, promising I can reassess when the alarm goes off. I typically continue beyond the set time, even if I don't get everything done.
When I'm at something I consider play, I do the same thing. I can reassess. It's a relief.
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I found the kitchen timer to be a highly effective parenting tool. When I said "5 minutes until bedtime" I was inevitably met with groans when the time had elapsed. When the timer went off and announced bedtime there was no argument.
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This is hilarious! thank you, Dominic. I love my timer (mainly for cooking) but this gives a whole new perspective on it.
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Using a timer on your cell phone is ideal.
I find it amazing how much I can accomplish in 5 minutes. For years I have been using a timer to keep on a task.
I find it amazing how much I can accomplish in 5 minutes. For years I have been using a timer to keep on a task.
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Using a timer is the only way I can get any work done: the maximum amount of words in a set amount of time which I've managed to increase significantly over... time
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I have been doing the same with the digital timer on stove or microwave. When my internet browsing turned into 3 hours in lieu of correcting student assignments, I knew enough was enough.
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Hahahahaha. Trivial desires that overcome my desire to write a decent sentence: the dogs need a leashed walk down the hill, the sheepskin rugs all need washing, the bookshelves should be better organized AND AND... I will install a timer this very weekend.
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I write complicated technical material for a living in a pressure-cooker work environment. I'd be adrift without pomodoros.
The thought of a highly focused 10- to 12-hour day is unbearable; by 10:00 in the morning, no end is in sight - very disheartening.
On the other hand, I can focus for 25 minutes, no problem. During the 5-minute break between pomodoros, my mind keeps working the text as I pace from window to window or fold laundry or feed the cats or water the plants, and then I agree with myself to focus for another 25 minutes. Thus the time goes by and, at the end, it's a productive day.
Surprisingly, the ticking of the kitchen timer is not a distraction, but an agreeable background beat.
The thought of a highly focused 10- to 12-hour day is unbearable; by 10:00 in the morning, no end is in sight - very disheartening.
On the other hand, I can focus for 25 minutes, no problem. During the 5-minute break between pomodoros, my mind keeps working the text as I pace from window to window or fold laundry or feed the cats or water the plants, and then I agree with myself to focus for another 25 minutes. Thus the time goes by and, at the end, it's a productive day.
Surprisingly, the ticking of the kitchen timer is not a distraction, but an agreeable background beat.
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There may be a point at which it is time to trade the timer for the intervention of a psychotherapist.
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I'm going to give it a try.
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Me too. I've just read it and truthfully haven't gotten up yet to set the timer. So not sure if this will turn out to be the help I need, or if I'll be able to defeat this too. But it does seem promising. If it works, it'll be pure gold.
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I'm not alone! It's a lifesaver, used for, e.g., warning me that I only have so much time before I leave the house to do something I don't particularly want to do, or the 5-minutes the cat is allowed to drink a trickle from the faucet in our drought-stricken state. (The runoff goes into a bucket and is used to water plants.) The author is just a wee bit obsessive, though, but perhaps I'll try it with book-reading and kitchen cleanup.
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No indeed - you are not alone! I've done this for years, and it really works in kitchen cleanup too. I set it for 30 minutes - after all, surely I can stand to clean for 30 minutes before taking a break to do something more interesting! Then I set the timer while I'm taking a 20 minute break, and re-set it to go back to work for another 30 minutes. Works like a charm.
Also do it when reading - I tend to lose myself in a good book and lose track of time, so I set the timer to remind me to start dinner, for example. Very useful. And when gardening, it does outside with me. I find that if I work in one position for too long I get really stiff and sore, so I set it for 30 minutes and then change to a task that uses a different set of muscles. I get a lot done that way!
Also do it when reading - I tend to lose myself in a good book and lose track of time, so I set the timer to remind me to start dinner, for example. Very useful. And when gardening, it does outside with me. I find that if I work in one position for too long I get really stiff and sore, so I set it for 30 minutes and then change to a task that uses a different set of muscles. I get a lot done that way!
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Perfectly timed piece. We use a timer at our poetry group. There is a difference between 3 and 5 minute brewed tea...
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This strategy works great for children, too.
In quarter- to half-hour chunks, any task/assignment is surmountable.
In quarter- to half-hour chunks, any task/assignment is surmountable.
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I offer my most distractable 4th graders a choice between the 90 second and three minute timers, and have them park off their progress for me to marvel at!
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