The Pomodoro Technique

Welcome to Writing Week on Author Audience.

Welcome to the Author Audience show. The podcast that helps you reach more people with your message, create a book, connect with your audience, change lives. Here's your host, Shelly Hitz.

Welcome back to the Writing Week. This is especially special week of podcasts I'm creating specifically for my seven day nonfiction writing challenge. I've created what I call writingweek.com. it's a free challenge to sign up and I invite you to join us because people are getting some pretty amazing results and I would love for you to get those same results as well. So this is day four, and in day four of the writing week challenge, I talk about the Pomodoro technique. Now, before creating this challenge, I read a lot of books and I did quite a bit of research on what works best for productive writers. Now, notice I didn't say speed writers. We're not talking just about writing fast for the sake of writing fast. I want you to write quick, quality work. I want you to write your best work. But I really believe we all can improve as writers and we can all become more productive. Anything we focus on and we work on, I believe we can improve. But when I was doing this research and I was just looking at different productive writers over and over and over and over again, I heard writers talking about the Pomodoro technique. I am pretty driven. I'm an action taker and so I don't need a ton of motivation to go and get work done. When I have a project and I know I have writing to get done, I mostly do it. Now, I will admit I had been procrastinating on a certain project. It was a cover letter I needed to write for a mailing I'm doing to some conferences. It's for speaking engagements and I was putting that off. It just seemed overwhelming to me for some reason, looking at that blank page. I finally got it done today. And you know how I got it done? I used the Pomodoro technique. Oh, I love this technique. And I saw the power of it when I did my first writer's project, Block Party. Isn't that a fun name? It's a name my husband helped me come up with for our group writing accountability sessions for Author Audience Academy. So if you're an Author Audience Academy member, you can join me. We have them about once a month and it's a fun time. And when we did this for the first time, we used the Pomodoro technique where you write for a focused period of time for 25 minutes. You set a timer and, and then you take a five minute break. Normally you want to get up, stretch, exercise, walk around, go to the bathroom, get a drink, do something different than what you've been doing with your writing. And then after a five minute break, you come back, you write for another 25 minutes. We did this for a total of four Pomodoros. So for two hours. After four Pomodoros, they recommend taking a longer break of 20 to 30 minutes. This technique helps you avoid burnout because when you just push, push, push, push, push, push, push without any break, it's easy to burn out and it's easy at tired. It's easy for your body to get fatigued and so it has that built in rest. I used to work as a physical therapist. I was licensed and worked full time for almost 12 years. And well, the last couple years was part time but I specialized in occupational health and work related injuries. So I specialized in people who had overuse injuries. Now as a writer, it is very easy to have overuse injuries from the computer use. So this is actually a built in break. You can stretch, you can change positions and it actually helps your fitness physical body as well so you can help avoid injuries. Okay, so that's the Pomodoro technique. It is amazing. Our very first writer's block party, we met together and I was just like, I'm kind of interested to see how this goes. It went so well. Everyone got tons of work done and they had fun. You know, we interacted. It was kind of like, you know, you get a little bit of social interaction there. You feel like someone else is with you because life as an author can be lonely. But it was a really good time. Now, day four in the challenge is all about the Pomodoro technique and encouraging you to try it in the, in the members area. You have the opportunity to also download the productivity coach software which you can try with this technique. And you know, I give you a couple other options, you know, online timers as well as an app and other things, like some resources for you. But what I've noticed is that so many of the participants already are talking about how they really get a lot done using this technique, whether or not they've used it for years or they're just learning about it and someone was like, this challenge has been a game changer for me and learning the Pomodoro technique has been amazing. And so I would love for you to try this out and I would love for you to join us. And what this is in the seven Day Nonfiction Writing Challenge. You actually get the opportunity in my members area to comment and it's a form of accountability, just commenting every day, how many words you wrote, what you're working on, how things are going, the insights you're getting, and you get to read everyone else's comments too. It's really a fun thing. So I would love for you to join us and I just want Jennifer to share with you a little bit about her experience with the challenge.

Hi, my name is Jennifer Bunderly and I'm writing a book about single women over the age of 40 who take the leap to living in a foreign country permanently. It's tentatively entitled Broads who Move, Women who've Made It Happen. I also blog@jenniferjbunderley.net before the writing Week challenge, my writing was all over the place and I although I had a lot of ideas, I simply had no focus and a lot of frustration. I've participated in Shelley's seminars and I know she is dynamic and highly motivating. Her energy and enthusiasm are so contagious and I have been greatly encouraged by her through her Author Audience Academy. When I received the invitation to participate in the Writing Week Challenge, I knew I could show up daily for a writing week and I prayed it would be just the kickstart I needed to get going as a writer for real. Well, my results were just what I had hoped for. Each day's assignment brought me clarity and focus and I was able to take the idea for this book and flesh it out. I now have the complete outline, the introduction, chapter one, all of them are written. I have completed my initial research and I have started the interviews with the women who are the research subjects for this particular book. All of this in one week. Woohoo. I am absolutely certain that the success I have had this week and my continued motivation is due to the journaling, scheduling, goal setting process, Pomodoro technique, positive affirmations, and encouraging feedback that I've received during this writing week. Simply said, each day's assignment was an essential part of my success as a recovering procrastinator. I am especially enthusiastic about the Pomodoro technique. Oh my gosh. These results mean I can do it. Shelley is right. She believes in me and now I do too. I highly encourage all wannabe, struggling or newbie writers to participate in this wonderful opportunity. I have every confidence that you will be successful and you will definitely be glad you did it. My name is Jennifer Bunderly and I am writing a book about single women over the age of 40 who take the leap to living in a foreign country permanently. It is tentatively entitled Broads who Move Abroad, Women who've Made It Happen. I also blog@jenniferjbunderley.net.

How amazing is that Jennifer was able to get the focus she needed to make amazing progress on her book. Oh my goodness. That just. I was smiling ear to ear if you could see me right now just listening to Jennifer, because nothing gets me more excited than seeing people get results and move forward in getting their message to the world. So I encourage you to sign up and to join us@writingweek.com and I will be back tomorrow talking about a really important topic. It's one of the things I think that derails more authors than almost anything else. It's mindset. So I'll be talking about that tomorrow on Day five. But thank you so much for joining me for this special edition of of Writing Week, and I'll see you next time.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Author Audience Show. Connect with us online@authoraudience.com where you'll find all the resources mentioned in today's episode. While you're there, grab Shelley's free video training on how to write and publish your book using her Six Step Ascent method. Join us again next week to learn how to reach your audience with your message.