Sound familiar — you walk into the practice room excited and bursting with ideas. There's a song you can't wait to learn, a lick you're working on, an original tune you've been writing. You sit down with the best intentions, then half an hour later you're on Instagram or YouTube or somewhere else in the deep recesses of the internet, eons away from those great intentions you arrived with.

How long were you actually practising for? 15 minutes? 10 minutes? 5???

If you've never experienced this — stop reading now. You've cracked it.

For the rest of you mere mortals, you need to start using a timer.

Start Using a Timer

A few years ago I found the Pomodoro Technique, a method which employs a kitchen timer to help you stay focused on a task. It was developed by a guy named Francesco Cirillo in the late 80s to help him study better at university.

Pomodoro literally means "tomato" in Italian. Cirillo used this word because his kitchen timer was shaped like a tomato.

I don't use a tomato timer. Mine is a basic, cheap digital timer. You can just as easily use the timer on your phone, although I like the tactility of dedicated tools — like timers, metronomes, and tuners. I have apps for them as well, but I prefer the real versions. I like my timer because it has a magnet on the back, so it sticks to the metal on my music stand.

How Does the Pomodoro Technique Work?

Choose a task to work on. Learn a song, compose something, do your scales, arpeggios — whatever you want. It works just as well for admin tasks like email and invoicing. Write your task down on a piece of paper.
Set the timer to 25 minutes. During this time you must stick to the task completely. Put your phone on airplane mode, shut the door, make a tea — get everything you need so you don't need to go anywhere. Don't change to another task until you've completed the one you started with. If you think of a new task, write it on your piece of paper, but don't start working on it until the first task is done. Each 25-minute block is referred to as one pomodoro.
Work until the timer goes off. When you're done, put a tick next to the task on your piece of paper.
Take a short break. About 5 minutes. Get out of the chair, walk around, feed your goldfish — whatever you like. Then come back for another pomodoro.
Move to the next task, or keep going with the first. If your task requires more than 25 minutes, that's fine — take a 5-minute break after the first pomodoro and return to the same task. Or switch to something different if you feel like a change. If you do a second round on a task, put another tick next to it on the paper.
Take a longer break after 4 pomodoros. Four rounds with 5-minute breaks between them is nearly two hours of work, so take a longer rest — around 20 to 30 minutes.
Keep going until you've done enough for the day. This is easier said than done. It's not easy to keep distractions at bay. So when you do get distracted — because you inevitably will — just notice it and get back to work. Over time your focus will improve.

My Experience with the Pomodoro Technique

The Pomodoro Technique forces me to create an intention for my practice before I start, to set a finite amount of time to work on it, and then commit not to change tasks until the timer goes off. As a result, I'm less prone to the multi-tasking trap when I use it.

I don't apply the Pomodoro Technique as much as I wish I did. I have productive days, I have terrible days. Sometimes I just jump from one thing to another aimlessly with some social media sprinkled in between. Other days I'm able to practice effectively and get things done. And now I'm more aware of how easily and often I'm distracted, and how much I want to change tasks before I'm finished.

It wasn't fun to discover how useless I was at sticking to a task. But the first step to change is awareness, so it was worth the discomfort.

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