And how it is better than Pomodoro
If you consume any amount of productivity content online you might have already heard about the technique used to sustain longer periods of work known as Pomodoro.
THE POMODORO TECHNIQUE
Our attention span for focusing on a single task is said to be limited, about 25 minutes approximately.
The Pomodoro technique involves breaking up the time you spend studying/working into periods of focused working sessions followed by a little break.
After 4 cycles of 25 minutes followed by a 5-minute break you get a longer break of 15 minutes.
As someone who gets easily distracted and needs a system in place to work properly, I’ve been trying the Pomodoro technique for a long time and here are my complaints:
CONS OF THE POMODORO METHOD
1. Less time for longer tasks – 25 minutes is not long enough when it comes to doing bigger chunks of work. It would be better to have more time to maintain concentration.
2. Short breaks – the 5-minute breaks are not enough to relax or get anything done. Every break was accompanied by a feeling of dread that I would have to begin working again soon.
3. The long break is too far off in the cycle – I never got through enough work cycles to get to the longer break. Even the longer 15 minute didn’t feel rewarding enough for the amount of work I was putting in.
4. The absence of a reward – It felt like I was working tirelessly without there being something to look forward to, it burned me out.
I was browsing through YouTube one day when I came across something called Animedoro.
WHAT IS ANIMEDORO?
The Animedoro technique was devised by a YouTuber named Josh Chen.
Taking inspiration from the original Pomodoro technique, he pointed out all its flaws and decided to come up with something new that would keep him motivated throughout his study sessions and for much longer.
Anime episodes are typically 20 minutes long if you leave out the intro and outro. They can alternatively be switched out for any other TV show that runs for 20 minutes an episode.
The typical Animedoro work cycle consists of 40 – 60 minutes of work followed by watching an episode of the anime of your choice.
HOW IS IT BETTER THAN POMODORO
Animedoro is ideal because it sustains your workflow with longer periods of concentration (40 – 60 minutes) in comparison to Pomodoro’s 25 minutes.
Animedoro breaks also consist of an activity that feels adequately satisfying and rewarding for the amount of work that you put in.
The intrigue followed by watching just one episode at a time also pushes you to work so that you can get to the next break to find out what happens next.
TESTING THE ANIMEDORO TECHNIQUE
With a big exam coming up, I had to put in a lot of hours to be fully prepared and felt anxious thinking about how long it would take me.
I decided to try using the Animedoro method and see if it actually worked. After every hour of studying I put on an episode of Attack on Titan.
With the longer work period of 60 minutes I was easily able to do a lot of work and felt accomplished when it was time for the break.
Watching the show in-between felt rewarding enough to feel like I was cheating because no study technique had ever allowed me to have so much fun at the same time.
At the end, I was able to work for 7 hours on my first day of trying out Animedoro which was way better than any of my Pomodoro sessions.
There are a lot of methods online on how to be more productive and they can always be tweaked slightly according to what suits you best. This is an example of how a tweaked version of the Pomodoro works so much better for me than the original version and is worth giving a go if you haven’t tried it.
