Responding to emails while preparing for a meeting and checking notifications on your smartphone… Employee “multitasking” has become the norm in companies. Yet this habit sabotages our productivity. To make your working day profitable, you must apply this method.
It’s an invisible evil that eats away at the days of many employees in companies: the fragmentation of tasks. By trying to do everything at once, we only exhaust our brains. Constantly moving from one file to another increases mental fatigue according to several studies in cognitive science and gives this frustrating impression of working a lot… without really progressing in your work. To be effective in our job, our brain needs the opposite: intense concentration on a single mission, for a specific period of time, interspersed with real breaks. This is the principle of “controlled mental load”. By limiting distractions, we not only reduce stress or the risk of professional burnout, but we also overcome procrastination.
This is where a time management method designed more than forty years ago and largely unknown to employees and employers comes into play. Invented in the 1980s, it was a little off the radar but the job market has since evolved, especially among younger generations who are fans of teleworking, full remote and who lives to the rhythm of incessant notifications. The concept is simple but extremely effective: break a complex task into several short segments to make it less anxiety-provoking. By imposing timed work cycles followed by regular breaks, we avoid brain overheating.
Today, when our attention often struggles to exceed ten minutes in front of screens, this technique – notably recommended by the University of Sherbrooke in Canada – has established itself as an essential working tool. It allows you to relearn how to concentrate fully and, finally, leave the office with a feeling of accomplishment and a light mind. The name of this way of working? The Pomodoro method.
Popularized in the 80s by Francesco Cirillo, it consists of working in short sessions, generally 25 minutes, entirely dedicated to a single task, followed by 5-minute breaks, then a longer break of 20 to 30 minutes after 4 work sessions. If you want, you can use a real timer to mark break and work times and write down your to-do list, which you will check off as you progress. You can also note the number of 25-minute sessions you will have to complete during the day and check off each time you have completed one!
But be careful, this recipe can be adapted to everyone depending on their pace and level of concentration. As for breaks, it is recommended to use them intelligently by preferring to get some fresh air, walk or stretch rather than rushing through social networks on your cell phone. The key to productivity is perhaps not to work more but to work differently!
