We all have experienced it, that moment when you sit down to work on something important, and suddenly you’re 40 minutes deep into emails that could have waited, Slack messages that didn’t need immediate responses, and somehow checking if that package has been dispatched yet?
Then you look at the clock and realise your entire morning is gone, and the actual work you sat down to do is still sitting there, untouched, staring and judging you.
If this sounds uncomfortably familiar, you’re not struggling with motivation or discipline. You’re struggling with something much more fundamental. I have been told that our brains weren’t designed for the way we work now. And it made me pause and think about this. The modern work environment isn’t what it used to be. Modern work involves sitting for long hours, staring at screens, juggling multiple abstract tasks, processing endless streams of digital information, and there is always a need for constant connectivity. This constant stimulation leads to stress, anxiety, and reduced deep-focus capacity.
The Problem With “Just Focus”
I have heard this countless times, addressed to me or even caught myself saying it many times to my colleagues or my own daughter: “Just eliminate distractions. Just focus better. Just manage your time.”
But is it really that simple?
The reality is that our attention spans are under constant siege. We’ve got notifications (and I am not talking about notifications you get on your mobile phone), open tabs, the mental load of everything else we need to do, and the anxiety that comes from staring at a big, undefined task. Telling yourself to “just focus” is like telling yourself to “just run a marathon” without any training plan.
What we actually need isn’t just more effort or motivation. We need a framework that works with how our brain naturally operates, not against it. Something that will help us focus better, manage information overload, and find balance in the chaos.
The Pomodoro Technique
I will be honest, and this will probably make me a reptile in this modern era. I’d never heard of this until my business partner mentioned it a few months ago. My first reaction? I was sceptical. I thought this was just another productivity hack that sounds good but doesn’t work in real life.
Then the following week, one afternoon, my teenage daughter came home from school completely overwhelmed. You know that end-of-term panic when everything’s due at once? She sat at the desk, opened her laptop and said, “Right, I’m going to take each homework task and use Pomodoro and see what I can accomplish.”
I just stared at her. Am I the last person to know about this?
If my teenager, who’s juggling exams and coursework and whatever drama is happening on social media, finds this useful enough to actually use it, maybe I should give it a go. She’s probably more productive at 16 than I am in my 40s.
It made me curious, and I wanted to find out more about what this Pomodoro thing actually is.
Francesco Cirillo developed it in the late 1980s using a tomato-shaped kitchen timer (hence “pomodoro”, Italian word for tomato). It’s stuck around while countless other productivity systems have faded away because it’s so simple, and it actually works.
Here’s the entire method:
1. Choose one task you want to work on
2. Set a timer for 25 minutes
3. Work on only that task until the timer rings
4. Take a 5-minute break
5. After four pomodoros, take a longer break (30 minutes)
And that’s the whole technique. Simplicity at its best.
Why 25 Minutes Changes Everything
There’s something psychologically powerful about 25 minutes. It’s short enough that you can’t procrastinate (“I’ll just do 25 minutes, that’s nothing”), but long enough to make real progress.
Your brain knows there’s an endpoint. You’re not committing to working on something indefinitely until it’s done. You’re committing to 25 minutes. Anyone can do 25 minutes of anything.
And here’s the clever bit: once you’re in it, once you’ve overcome the initial resistance and you’re actually working, you often don’t want to stop when the timer goes off. The hardest part is starting. The Pomodoro technique tricks you into starting.
What It Actually Looks Like in Practice
One thing pomodro won’t do for you is make you magically fall in love with tedious work. That financial model is still a financial model. That code refactoring is still code refactoring. Those candidate screening calls are still screening calls.
But what it does is make the work manageable. Instead of facing a three-hour slog, you’re facing 25 minutes. Then another 25 minutes. Then another. The work gets broken into pieces that your brain can actually process without shutting down.
I’ve seen people use this for everything. Financial analysts building forecasts. Developers are debugging that one persistent issue. Recruiters reviewing applications and writing feedback. The technique doesn’t discriminate; it works on whatever you point it at.
The Breaks Matter (Seriously)
Some people mess this up (myself included): they skip the breaks or, like me, check emails during the five minutes.
The breaks aren’t optional. They’re the other half of why this works.
Your brain needs those breaks to consolidate what you’ve just done, to step back, to let things settle. It’s like the rest period between sets at the gym. You can’t just keep lifting without recovery and expect to build strength.
During your breaks, please stand up, move around, look at something that isn’t a screen, make tea or coffee, and stretch. Do not check your phone. Do not look at your emails. Actually, take a break.
We Made Something to Help
Knowing about Pomodoro and actually doing it are two different things, and because of that, we created something practical: a Pomodoro timer video with some relaxing music in the background.
Just a friendly timer counting down your 25 and 50 minutes with music that’s meant to help you focus without getting in the way. Check it out below.
Put it on while you’re working on whatever you need to get done. Let it handle the timing so you don’t have to think about it. Check it out and see if it works for you.
Addressing the Real Objections ( mine included)
“I don’t have time to take breaks every 25 minutes.”
You don’t have time not to. What you’re currently doing, working for hours in a state of semi-focus with constant interruptions, is far less efficient than structured work periods with real breaks. You’ll get more done in four focused pomodoros than in three hours of distracted effort.
“My work doesn’t break down into 25-minute chunks.”
Neither does anyone’s, really. Some tasks take multiple pomodoros. Some take one. The point isn’t that everything magically fits into 25 minutes. The point is that you work in focused sprints rather than endless marathons.
“What about meetings and emails?”
Meetings will remain meetings; work with your calendar. How about emails? They can absolutely be a pomodoro. “For the next 25 minutes, I’m only dealing with emails, then I’m done.” Same with any administrative work. The technique doesn’t care what the task is.
Start With One Tomorrow
I wouldn’t recommend using the Pomodoro technique for your entire day tomorrow; that’s a quick way to set yourself up for frustration.
Instead, pick one task. The thing you’ve been avoiding. The project that matters to you and your team but never seems to get done. Set a timer for 25 minutes and only do that one thing.
See how it feels. See for yourself if those 25 minutes are more productive than the 90 minutes you usually spend procrastinating before finally starting. One pomodoro. That’s all you need to try. And then gradually build on it.
This technique doesn’t care if you’re working on something brilliant or something tedious. What it does is give you a structure that makes starting easier and staying focused possible. Everything else — all that productivity advice about passion and purpose and finding your why is important too. But first, you need to actually sit down and do the work.
And for that, you need 25 minutes and a timer.
What’s the one task you’re going to try this on? The thing you’ve been putting off that would actually make a difference if you just did it? Give it one Pomodoro and see what happens.
