Tomato or Jam?

Are you trying to increase your productivity? Do you want to be more productive at “doing your work”, instead of talking about doing your work?

Some productivity experts push the Pomodoro Technique—which is to set an alarm for 20 minutes, focus on doing your work, then take a 5 minute break, rinse and repeat.

But me, I like to go DEEP. 20 minutes and I am just getting warmed up… so I prefer the Darren Hardy (The Compound Effect, and The Entrepreneur Roller Coaster) method called a JAM session. This has nothing to do with strawberries. And it is also not an acronym. With this method you shut off all distractions and DO YOUR WORK for 90 minutes solid. Then take your break. If you are lucky, you can fit 2-3 jam sessions in a day. I do one in the morning as soon as possible because then I have already accomplished something big before breakfast and I feel good about that. Ben Tal-Shahar (Happier, Being Happy, Choose the Life you Want)said we humans can focus for up to 90 minutes before we need a break, and I have found that to be true for me. My push endurance is 90 minutes.

So you decide what works best for you. Maybe start with the tomato and build up to the jam. In either case, stop talking about doing it and get your work done. Pull a Nike and just do it!

Have a great week! Alicia