None of us has perfectly obedient minds, thank goodness,
which means it's inevitable that distracting thoughts are going to arise.
The thing is when you're doing a pomodoro, you don't want to try to push those
thoughts away or tell yourself not to think those thoughts.
Instead, you just want to acknowledge the distracting thought and
let it go by as you return your attention to whatever you were focusing on.
We've mentioned the first three components of the Pomodoro Technique, but
there's actually a fourth.
Once you're done with the pomodoro it's reward time.
[SOUND] You get to switch your attention for a while to whatever you want.
You might listen to a favorite song, go to your favorite social media,
watch a funny dance video, do a funny dance yourself, chat online with a friend.
Or do something where you move around a little bit,
straighten part of your room, walk to the kitchen to get some coffee or tea.
The whole idea is to get your attention off whatever you've just been focusing on.
In fact,
you want to give the part of the brain you've just been using a bit of a break.
This means the reward shouldn't involve similar types of tasks.
For instance, if you've been writing a report then you don't want to go to
Twitter or Facebook and continue writing, even if it's about a different subject.
That would be kind of like taking a break from lifting heavy
barbells instead by lifting boxes of books.
You're still doing heavy lifting either way,
which means you're not getting much of a break.
And at the end of the day you'll find yourself getting much more tired.
A great approach is, if you're doing mental work,
try to instead do some kind of movement during your breaks,
something where your brain can relax and your mind can do some wandering.
All of this is very important because in the past we've always thought that
learning only took place when we were focusing our attention on something.
But we now understand that an important part of learning takes
place when we're not focusing on something.
In fact, to truly understand something we often need periods where we've
switched our attention off the material we're trying to understand, because
that's the time when we consolidate and make sense of the material.
We're not consciously aware of this process, which is why we often don't
realize how important this consolidation process is for
learning, memory, and long-term creativity.
We've heard from tens of thousands of learners in Learning How to Learn
about how much they loved the Pomodoro Technique.
People often ask, well, why 25 minutes?