At Working Triathlete, one of our core philosophies is accomplishing more through deliberate efficiency. While most of our attention is focused on helping athletes achieve their endurance goals, we are also interested in the intersections of high-level physical training and business/productivity. Working Triathlete members include some of the most successful executives, entrepreneurs, and business professionals on the planet. The overlap between success in triathlon and business is tremendous. Consistency, discipline, planning, efficiency, and “doing the work” are universally important in both domains.
As a coach, I love leveraging systems that encourage athletes to achieve consistency and enjoy training. In business, I’m energized by identifying ways to accomplish more with less effort. When those things intersect, I get excited. Over the past few months, I’ve applied principles of interval training to business tasks to achieve more through a time management system called the Pomodoro Technique.
What is the Pomodoro Technique?
The Pomodoro Technique is a time management method developed by Frencesco Cirillo in the late 1980s. It involves working in 25-minute increments on a specific task, followed by a five-minute mandated break, and then repeating this a number of times. Originally, the time blocks were measured with a tomato timer (pomodoro is the Italian word for tomato, hence the name), but I use an app called PomodoroToDo.
The point of the Pomodoro Technique is to focus 100% on a single task for 25 minutes. Then, at the end of the 25-minute interval, you take a five-minute break and direct your focus elsewhere. This break is essential because it enables you to reset or “recover” from the work interval you just completed. Then, when you start the next 25-minute block, you will be in a refreshed state of mind, able to continue working at a high level.
Comparison to Interval Training
If you’re an endurance athlete, the Pomodoro Technique will sound a lot like interval training. Common in running, cycling, and other endurance sports, interval training involves going hard for a set period of time–i.e., the active interval–followed by a rest interval where you recover. Repeating this active interval at a high intensity (e.g., race pace, VO2 max pace, etc.) followed by the rest interval multiple times in a workout enables athletes to accrue more time at a given high intensity than they would if they just ran or cycled continuously at that high effort. It has the added benefit of being less traumatic on the body/mind, accruing lower recovery costs.
Strategic Breaks Maximize Efficiency
The result of doing intervals (during endurance training) or applying the Pomodoro Technique (during work) is an increase in the volume of high-quality performance and therefore efficiency. For example, if an athlete was to run at their mile race pace continuously, they would be able to hold that pace for — you guessed it — a mile, after which time they would be laying on the ground exhausted and unable to do another interval at the same intensity/quality level. However, if they broke up the workout into something like 12x400 at pace with a short rest interval, they could complete three times the distance at the same pace. In this way, integrating strategic breaks in training enables an athlete to do more in a single session. The short rest intervals allow athletes to clear lactate/hydrogen ions from their system and recharge so they can launch into another bout of high-intensity/high-quality work.
The Pomodoro Technique harnesses the same principles. If you sit down in front of your computer to analyze the economics of a business deal or read a dense text book, your focus and ability to process/absorb information (i.e., produce quality work) decays fairly quickly. After an hour of continuous focus, you start zoning out and making errors. After a couple of hours, your efficiency and work quality plummets dramatically. However, by implementing strategically timed breaks (five minutes every 25 minutes) you can get ahead of the mental fog that occurs when you go full tilt on work for a long time. The key is constantly renewing your focus by deliberately implementing short breaks BEFORE you feel you need them.
By taking strategically timed breaks (25 minutes on, five minutes off, you can produce more high-quality work in a session than if you worked continuously.
In addition to increasing the total duration of quality work in a given session, both interval training and the Pomodoro Technique can enhance the overall quality of work completed. Because an athlete or worker knows the rest intervals/breaks are coming, they are more likely to dig deep in those interceding push periods. For example, you may be dealing with excruciating boredom reading through a dry contract full of legalese, however by glancing at the timer and seeing 11 minutes left, you may be inspired to push on to see if you can mark up two more sections before the timer rings. Or, if you’re an endurance athlete and feel your legs and lungs burning in the middle of a difficult 800 meter interval at 5K pace, knowing that you only have a few hundred meters to run before a glorious break can inspire you to finish the interval strongly.
Although the concept of “taking breaks” while working is common, I encourage you to specifically give the 25 minutes on, five minutes off, Pomodoro method a try. You may find yourself accomplishing three times as much in a day or completing the same amount in half the time—both being invaluable if you’re trying to balance family, work, whole health, and performance.
Conrad Goeringer is an Ironman Certified Coach based out of Nashville, TN. He is the founder of Working Triathlete and author of the book The Working Triathlete. His passion is helping athletes of all levels and with all schedules achieve their endurance goals. Reach out to learn more about coaching packages and for a free consultation.