Productivity can be a huge problem for any small business. There will be times when work pours out of you at a phenomenal rate and others where you sit in front of your computer cycling through Facebook and Twitter.
I’ve found that no one productivity technique works for me in the long term. Much like dieting I bounce from one system to another but whichever I put in place does tend to pull me out of a period of procrastination quite quickly. This weeks cool tool is a chrome browser extension that follows the ‘Pomodoro’ technique, that is you work like the clappers for 25 minutes and then are allowed a five minute break.
You will need to be using the Chrome browser in order to install and use it.
Here’s how it works
- Visit the ‘Strict Workflow’ Chrome extension page here.
- Click ‘Add to chrome’
- Read the permissions that you are giving to the app and click ‘Add’ if you are happy. It’s important to give these permissions as the app will stop access to specific sites whilst you are in productivity mode.
- A picture of a tomato will appear on the top right hand side of the browser window. This screen grab is from Chrome for Mac, the position of the icon may vary depending on the computer you are using.
- If you right click the icon you can change the settings of the app. It automatically blocks a number of sites, see the image below
Look what happened when I tried to access Facebook!- You can change the length of work time v break time here too.
- When you click the tomato icon it will start counting down the time you have left until your next break and it will sound an alarm when you get there.
- After the 25 minutes it starts counting down your break time, clicking the now green tomato starts your break countdown.
This app will be a hugely helpful tool for me, it will keep me thinking about the reward I’m going to get after 25 minutes. It’s unfortunate though that I have to access Facebook and Twitter as part of my work, my procrastinating brain has already thought of ways to get around the sites being blocked.
Whatever the downside I can see me using this in conjunction with previous cool tool ‘Written Kitten‘ to keep my productivity moving at a decent pace.
Will you use this tool? Do you know of another one that helps you get through the working day and banish procrastination? Leave me a comment below.
