DIY Intervention: Focus & Priorities

Janessa Escajeda

NTR 598, Fall 2013

Problem: How to prioritize

O Why?O Trying to do too many things at once, jumping

around

O Distracted by little things (at home, online)

O I’ve been able to get away with it, do things last minute

O PreferencesO Getting small tasks done and out of the way

O Thinking 1-2 days in advance as opposed to weeks

O Best energy in the morning, but it’s spent at school or running errands/cleaning

Purpose: Give tasks a place

O FirstTask Pro

O Android application my uncle made

O It’s a Master “to do” list

O Set up categories and select highest priority

item in each

O “Today” category shows all the highest

priority items, and you select the highest

priority of those

O Therefore, you are always doing what you

have selected as the highest priority of all

your tasks

Plans: They aren’t perfect

O Found that I had reoccurring tasks that did not fit well into the priority schemeO Something bigger may be more important

because it will take longer, but something else is due sooner

O Can’t realistically do these items until they are “complete” (not typical to do’s), so keep having to change priorities

O Changed strategy: the Pomodoro TechniqueO Began breaking my time down into “pomodoros”

of 25 minutes of complete focus, followed by a short break

O After 4 pomodoros, take a longer (20-30min) break and repeat

Francesco Cirillo. Pomodoro in action. The Pomodoro Technique Web Site. http://pomodorotechnique.com/get-started/. Accessed October 30,

2013.

FocusBooster home page. FocusBooster Web Site. http://www.focusboosterapp.com/. Accessed October 30, 2013.

Progress: Productivity!

O More realistic system for my purposes

O Can give small tasks a single pomodoro with pomodoros of big tasks around it

O Rather than focusing on one tasks, I can get multiple tasks done, just in chunks

O Results?

O Hard to quantify (catch-22)

O Accomplishing more tasks in a day, more aware of how spend my time, can better spread it out

O My Record: 8 pomodoros (200 productive minutes in about 4.5 hours)