Structured Periods of Work and Rest
Over the centuries educators have established that the best way to structure the day in order to maintain concentration is to have lesson periods of 30 to 60 minutes separated by short breaks of a few minutes. When we leave school or college we forget this time honored technique, but it has been shown to be a very good way for knowledge workers to make the most of their day.
Getting Started
A good starting point for setting the time periods is to set the work period to 48 minutes and to set a 12 minute rest. Then do whatever you can to ensure that you will not be distracted while you work. Close your email, switch off the phone, close the door. Start the PPT clock and work with complete focus and concentration on your selected task. When the work period is completed, stop what you are doing and rest. The rest period is as important as the work period in maintaining long term productivity. And of course, after the rest it's back to work for another 48 minutes.
While working this way you should be aiming at working for the full period rather than trying to complete the task in the available work time. You will find that the timer helps to maintain a healthy level of pressure on you to keep working steadily, but do not allow your work to become a race against the clock.
If you have an absolutely unavoidable distraction you can pause PPT, and then restart it once you get back to work to ensure that you do spend the full allocated time on your task. But this should be the exception rather than the rule.
Selecting the Time Split
You will find various time splits recommended by different authors. There is no magic "one size fits all" time split that works for all people and in all situations. Experiment for yourself and see what suits you for different tasks. However, there are some general guidelines that will help get you started.
Knowledge workers often speak of getting into a State of Flow, or getting into the Zone, when doing creative work. When this happens, work flows effortlessly and pleasurably. In order to get into this state it is generally necessary to work in a highly focused way for 20 to 30 minutes. If you are aiming to achieve this, then you should use a work period of 45 to 50 minutes, or even longer if you can. Mental concentration is an ability that improves with practice and you will find you can use longer work periods after a while. But remember that the rest period is also essential. You will find that if you take a rest of 10 or 12 minutes you will be able to get back into a state of flow very quickly when you start work again.
In general you will find that longer work periods are suited to creative work like writing a book or computer programming, while the shorter periods are better suited to more mechanistic work like replying to routine emails or filing.
A popular timing structure for mechanistic or boring tasks is known as the ( 10 + 2 ) x 5 method. Here you use work periods of only 10 minutes, followed by breaks of 2 minutes. This cycle is repeated 5 times, giving you a total of exactly 1 hour, and then you have a longer rest of 10 to 15 minutes. This can be repeated as often as necessary.
Importance of Breaks
When you find yourself in a state of flow it can be tempting to just keep working and to skip the breaks. But it is better in terms of overall productivity to take the breaks. During the break do something physical like having a stretch, a short walk, go to the bathroom, make coffee, or whatever you can fit into the time period. Try to get your eyes to focus further away than the screen or book you have been working on. After a shortish break you will quickly get back into the productive state you were in before and by having regular breaks you will be able to keep up this level of work for longer.
When you are not doing pleasurable "in the zone" type work the break is always there as a definite reward that follows the period of intense work. Select a work period that is not overwhelmingly long and which allows you to anticipate the break. By combining the "carrot" of the break with the "stick" of the ticking clock on the screen you will find that it is much easier to maintain high motivation and productivity.
It may seem wasteful to deliberately allocate 12 minutes out of every hour to doing nothing directly productive. But if you observe your colleagues carefully you will see that most people do much less than 48 minutes of truly productive work in an hour. By giving up a bit of time to resting you will actually gain enormously in productivity and motivation, and even in terms of the pleasure you get from your work.
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