Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. — Winston Churchill
Engineering professor Barbara Oakley sat down with the Big Think to discuss learning. Learning to learn better is what she teaches. One of the most effective techniques she knows of was created by an Italian named Francesco Cirillo. It’s called the Pomodoro Technique. According to Barbara, what makes the technique so effective is it trains your brain to concentrate for 25 minutes. Research shows your brain suffers for 20 minutes when you first try to concentrate, so outlasting that pain will help you get into a flow state of focus. You’ll need to summon the willpower to put your phone away.
First, a quick rundown on the Pomodoro Technique. It’s a time management method developed by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980’s. His technique uses a timer to break down work into intervals, traditionally 25 minutes in length, separated by short breaks. He called these intervals pomodoros, the plural in English of the Italian word pomodoro (tomato), after the tomato-shaped kitchen timer he used as a university student.
Cirillo broke down the technique into six steps:
Decide on the task to be done.
Set the pomodoro timer (traditionally 25 minutes).
Work the task until the timer rings.
After the timer rings, put a checkmark on a piece of paper.
If you have fewer than four checkmarks, take a short break (3-5 minutes), then go to step 2.
After four pomodoros, take a longer break (15–30 minutes), reset your checkmark count to zero, then go to step 1.
Barbara says the Pomodoro Technique is probably one of the most powerful techniques in all of learning. She teaches a course on “learning how to learn” that’s actually the world’s largest massive open online course (MOOC). She’s taught something like two million people, and the Pomodoro Technique is the most popular. Plus it’s so simple anyone can do it.
It’s important to turn off all distractions. So, no little ringy-dingys on your cell phone or anything like that. On you computer you’ll want to turn off any kind of messages which might arise. Next, set the timer for 25 minutes, and then just focus as intently as you can for those 25 minutes.
Barbara says if you’re like her, you’ll start focusing away and working away, and then look up at the timer and only two minutes have passed. She says her brain goes, “I’ve only done two minutes? I can’t do another 23 minutes on this Pomodoro!” She just lets the thought go right by and returns her focus to whatever she’s working on. When the 25 minutes are up, she relaxes a little bit and turns her attention to something else.
So why is 25 minutes the magic number? The reality is we don’t really know. There hasn’t been a lot of research on the Pomodoro Technique, which is surprising because the technique is incredibly popular and most people find it useful.
But, there’s an interesting tidbit related to the Pomodoro Technique: when you even just think about something you don’t like much it activates a portion of your brain that experiences pain. And so the brain naturally shifts its attention to something else, anything else, like Facebook or Twitter or something like that. Now what you’ve just done is you’ve procrastinated.
This is where the power of the Pomodoro Technique comes in. When you use the technique, you’re setting that timer. She says you don’t want to sit there and think, “I am going to finish this homework set” or “I’m going to work on this problem and get it all finished.” You end up thinking, “I’ve got 25 minutes where I have to work on something.” You don’t even need to think about what the something is. She says it slips in under your brains radar where it doesn’t activate much pain in your brain. So, if you’ve been working for 25 minutes you will suddenly find yourself getting into flow because you’ve gone past the painful period which research says usually lasts for 20 minutes.
Barbara says the Pomodoro Technique is effective in many different, and some very subtle ways, which is why she so highly recommends it. You can view her full comments here.