“I just can’t make myself get started,” a high school senior told me. She was sitting in my office in obvious distress. College deadlines were approaching, and all she had for an essay were a few scattered notes.
“Try a Pomodoro,” I suggested. “Right here, right now. I’ll set the timer for 25 minutes. You don’t have to finish your essay — just work on it till the timer goes off, then take a break.”
Twenty-five minutes later, she looked up. “OMG. I’m half-way done. That totally worked!”
When faced with a task you are dreading or that seems overwhelming, the hardest part is usually just getting started. And this is the space where so many of the parent-child homework battles live.
The single most concrete, effective tool I’ve found for starting a task and remaining focused on one’s work is the Pomodoro Technique. Alas, I was twice my student’s age before I heard about this strategy. During an interview with Barbara Oakley — author and creator of the wildly popular Learning How to Learn MOOC — she shared with me that of all the techniques she teaches in that course, the Pomodoro Method is “far and…
