Mark Clemons

As any entrepreneur, consultant or freelancer will tell you, time management is difficult and most of us are poor at it. I am no exception to the rule. Whether it is working too long or not working enough, most of us could use some help getting our day under control.

In my case, I often find myself procrastinating and then doing all night cram sessions, or I get really motivated one day and the next I can’t seem to get anything done. Luckily I caught a tweet from a friend who pointed to a neat little app called focus booster. It uses the Pomodoro Technique which basically says, do 25 minutes of work, take a 5 minute break, every forth time take a slightly longer break.

I’ve been using this the last week or so and found that it really helps. Often I work on a task for an hour or two and then find myself taking a half hour break or more and going off on tangents. With the focus booster app it helps me work hard on a task and then take a break so I don’t get burned out.

An additional benefit with the focus booster over a regular timer is that the colors on it start changing as the time winds down and I find I often start working hard to get the task done or if i’m ready to quit the task I know I just have a few more minutes to stick it out.

Multi-tasking is a big part of my day, I always have several projects going on at once and you need to keep everyone happy, by breaking your day into small chunks I find I can give everyone the attention they need.

What to do with your 5 minute break?

• Read news
• Check email
• Quick work out
• Yoga
• Medititaion
• Grab a snack.

If you are working a normal 8 hour work day, you’ll find that you can get in at least 10 minutes an hour of break time, for 8 hours is an hour and twenty minutes, so if you spend every other break working out you can easily get a half hour a day in, which if you’ve read “You on a Diet” then you know that could make all the difference in the world. Here’s another suggestion for what to do on your break.

Some other great things to check out for time management…

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_hack
3. http://zenhabits.net/
4. http://thepowerofless.com/

So check out the focus booster and use it in combination with some of the other techniques that you already use or some of them from the list above and you’ll start increasing your producitivity in no time.

Note: I used a pomodoro to write the blog, I’m going to follow it up with some yoga!

Update: After looking over some of the 43 Folders stuff I found this alternative, same principle shorter time. http://www.43folders.com/2005/10/11/procrastination-hack-1025