TOMATO TIMER - THE POMODORO TECHNIQUE

Back in January 2017, I was not only recovering from some festive season excesses, but also from running my 3-month long East by West pop-up restaurant — which I had created and opened in just 10 days and was front and back of house on top of my usual work with Hemsley+Hemsley. During this time I got a new publisher for my latest vision — East by West the cookbook — and I was absolutely ecstatic but pretty much close to burnt out. On top of that, my publication date for mid-2018 suddenly got brought forward a year, so I had to quickly get to work on drafting chapter ideas on the book every morning and evening either side of my usual schedule. I was getting deep into the incredibly exciting and fascinating world of Ayurveda, but struggling to actually get the book done. I’m a procrastinator when it comes to big projects at the best of times and, as a Vata type, I’m easily distracted and continuously lured away by other shiny things. I realised to get this book done and to preserve my energy I was going to have to enhance my way of working.

Fast forward a month or so to spring 2017 and I travelled to the Himalayas to the beautiful enclaves of Vana. A magical Ayurvedic paradise — basically super serene and really quite luxurious compared to the more rough and ready Ayurvedic Panchakarma places in India that I was familiar with. It served two purposes: one, to give me the break I needed and two, to be inspired by the Vaidyas there who were used to communicating the eastern holistic philosophy of Ayurveda into practical takeaways for the westerners who visited.

It was a month of... a lot going on, but that’s another blog post. Let’s just say that my mind ran wild with the magic and the mysteries and the influence and the inspiration until my Vadiyas checked my pulse on the second week and banned me from screens, reading and work. My Vata was through the roof and for the treatments to reach the cellular level I needed to get out of my head, into my body and calm the hell down.

So… there I am, back in the UK feeling absolutely relaxed and under strict instructions to take the next couple of months easy — the analogy is that your house is freshly renovated, but the paint and plaster are still wet, so great care is needed until it all beds in well. I’m fast running out of time to create a book that is not only a shift away from H+H but is also about to try and explain and authentically do justice to an incredible ancient philosophy, as well as make it into a cookbook, and I’m surrounded by paper scribbles and voice notes and all the rest, and I still have to write, test and shoot all the recipes.

The point of this blog post is to share the working technique that enabled me to write this book in a short window, keep up with all my other work and still maintain my sanity. My friend, Shaman Durek, gave me this brilliant tip-off — try the Pomodoro Technique, he said, in his booming L.A. voice. My mind ran to tomatoes, Italy and recipes ideas — the what now? He explained that he got this advice when writing his first book in Istanbul. The idea is to set a timer for 25 minutes, get as much work done in that time as you can, then take a 5-minute break. After several chunks of this (each 25-minute interval called a pomodoro, after the creator Francesco Cirillo’s tomato-shaped kitchen timer), you take a bit of a longer break. What this does is trick your brain into thinking something needs doing as a priority, when before you might have been multitasking, procrastinating and jumping from one task to another without much structure. That way, you can be more productive and effective without tiring yourself out needlessly.

I tried it. It was really good. I found some free trial timers on apps. I felt excited again and productive. Stuff was happening — those little tomato deadlines were making a quick meal of my procrastinations. I made Nick try it — he doesn’t like anyone interfering with his way of working but I conned him into it. In our 5-minute breaks, we made tea, stretched, addressed a note or two on my jotter, and Nick hung off his gymnastic rings and had the best back health he’d ever had (we’ve yet to put them up in our new place). And most importantly, I got the book done, albeit a little late (the nature of my job means I can’t account for other projects that come in and steer the ship off in another direction for a bit) but considering it happened in just over 4 months and was released in November 2017, I think I did alright! Wellbeing book of the year!

I recommend this working technique to lots of friends — especially freelancers who work for several different companies. There are many apps inspired by this technique, so by the end of the day/week/month, you can tot up and organise accordingly. For me with different projects it’s great to see where indeed I am spending my time and if it’s useful in the grand scheme of my business. If you’re looking for something a lot less techy, you can get yourself a sand timer — I have seen a few 25-minute ones on the web, but most are for 30 minutes, and then you’ll have to start a 5-minute sand timer for your break right after! Otherwise if you start on the hour or half past the hour you can keep an eye on your watch — but both of these methods mean you can easily miss the silent cut-offs and are prone to being easily distracted “keeping an eye on the time” which is the opposite of productive...

Nick and I are not always in the “office” and so like all good habits, annoyingly, it is easy to break. So it’s only when I start procrastinating again that I remember to go back to the Tomato Timer as I also refer to it (just because so many apps call it that). I haven’t actually paid for an app, so after my trial ran out I moved to the timer on my phone, but I have to admit it’s not working this way — it’s not official enough, and I just ignore it and then forget to set my 5-minute break and so on. So I’m gonna finish this rambling article right here and go find an app to get me back on track and I’ll do a follow-up to this article when I’ve found my new accountability partner, so to speak. If you do the same, give me a shout in the DMs!