Finish Your Week Strong With Finish Line Friday

Did you know? I host a free weekly productivity session, “Finish Line Friday”, for my community.

Based on the ideas of Accountability and Body Doubling (both recent Weekly Themes), my participants and I spend time together working side by side on our own tasks.

Statistically speaking, the most productive ratio of work to rest is 52 minutes of work and 10 minutes of rest, repeated in cycles. In Finish Line Friday, we use the Pomodoro Technique (read more here!) for productivity. The Pomodoro Technique takes the 52 / 10 ratio and breaks that into cycles of 25 minutes of work and 5 minutes of rest.

We work through 4 cycles of 25 and 5, and then wrap up and taking a little longer break before getting back to work.

Some of the benefits of Finish Line Friday include:

  • Camaraderie and a pleasant group to work with:
    • And some positive energy to share!
    • I am a verbal processor and it helps me to say out loud to others what I want to work on for the next 25 or 50 minutes
  • A deeper dive on Time Management:
    • Participants report arriving at a better grasp of just how long certain types of task take, and getting better about budgeting the time to get things done.
    • Similarly, participants have mentioned that FLF helps them to know what 25 minutes feel like. Or 50.
      • Which, again, helps us going forward with planning our work and our time.
      • We don’t often know what a certain amount of time feels like.  And since we all have many responsibilities, it is helpful to know how long to dedicate towards a project before we need to pause that work and switch to other work.
    • Breaking down projects into 25 minute chunks keeps us making progress without feeling overwhelmed!
  • Building the Productivity Muscles!
    • In life, we don’t always get to complete a task or project.  But making progress on it today, even if we just get to work on it for an hour or two, is still better than not working on it all.  And the more progress we make, the better idea we get of just what is left to finish until we can call the work complete!
  • Conversely, we’re reminded that productivity improves when breaks happen!
    • Using the Pomodoro Method helps me be better about taking breaks.  Whoo boy, I am seriously terrible about this sometimes!
    • I love it when I seem to hit a stride in my work and can just focus and keep working on getting a project complete.  So I have been known to just commit to work and sit… at  my computer… for 3 or 4 hours straight with hyperfocus.  And then… the brain starts to get fuzzy, my shoulders are tight and I have a headache, I’m starving, my feet fell asleep, my water glass has been empty for hours and now I am completely spent.  So, as much as I LOVE a good focus session when I am in the zone, I MUST get up and move around at regular intervals.

Consider joining us for Finish Line Friday, for productivity and a supportive community! Email me to sign up, Colleen@peaceofmindpo.com!