Originally published at TheFieryWell.com in October of 2022, The Pomodoro® Primer for Magic Makers article has been updated and broken up over a series of posts for The Coworking Coven. This is the seventh article of the series.
Observing yourself, your work, your habits, your interruptions, your mood, and your feelings while doing a Pomodoro not only helps you track how best to utilize the method, but also lets you tap into a flow and zone of work. You are crafting a thorough and thoughtful intention practice while you work.
Using the Pomodoro® Technique is a long-term practice, like any other mindfulness practice: meditation, movement, or magic. Allow it to become what it needs to become to support you best.
Cycles & Productivity
As a human, you have many cycles: circadian rhythms, diurnal rhythms, ultradian rhythms, infradian rhythms (such as menstruation), and chronotypes. Are you accounting for them during your working periods? Or are you striving to work a full, set, Monday through Friday 9 – 5?
You may still have a 9-5 as a solitary business owner & entrepreneur. This isn’t to knock that work but to point out that you are a human in the post-industrial age and you cannot be “productive” for 8 hours per day, every day, for weeks on end. Work within the system you are given, whenever possible, to optimize your day for you. Whenever and however you can.
Into astrology? Note the dates and times at which you work. This gives you a record you can return to and note: what were the transits? What got done? Is there a correlation? Do you feel energized or drained when the Moon is in Capricorn? When Mercury or Saturn is Retrograde are you more distracted, or find yourself more prone to errors?
Do you menstruate? Are there types of work that are better suited for you during a luteal phase than follicular?
Note these details wherever you log your Pomodoro sessions. You may be surprised by what cycles and rhythms reveal themselves.
With this information in your arsenal, you can use your rhythms to your advantage.
Rest is not wrong
There is no set manual on how to spend one’s time when you are self-employed. You have to make your own rules and we often continue the toxic practices we have grown to know simply because they are familiar. Anything that goes against these familiar rules feels “wrong.”
And more often than not, what feels the most wrong is rest.
I challenge you to choose rest. To build systems that make room for, if not necessitate, rest.
The Pomodoro® Technique is merely one way to begin to see the hours of your day and your available time as a partner on your journey, rather than an obstacle or something you have to fight to squeeze every second out of.
And never, ever, ever, ever use the Pomodoro® Technique in areas outside of your work. Let your hobbies take up time without requiring yourself to notice their passage.
Slow down, my witch. Enjoy life.
The work will always be there.
And you are worthy of rest.
Regardless of your productivity.
And finally, let’s take a look at how we utilize the Pomodoro® Technique inside The Coworking Coven.