30 Minutes = Eternity or a Flash?
When I am waiting for someone to get ready to head out the door... then 30 minutes is an eternity!!! Like nails down a chalkboard... for 30 lonnnnggggg minutes!
But when I'm sitting down to work on a project... then 30 minutes isn't enough time to do anything of significance, at least to my mind. So I might as well not even get started. Because I only have 30 minutes you know.
See the disconnect? Sometimes 30 minutes feels like a HUGE amount of time... and sometimes it feels like nothing at all. It's the same 30 minutes... it's just my attitude towards it that is different. I know this about myself. I am well aware of it. Yet, I seem unable to do anything to address it.
Well, that's not true... sometimes now... if we are heading out the door for 11 am (ish)... then I know that I can usually just keep working away on something, or tidying up or... whatever... until I get the call that "I'm just about ready!". It might be 11:02 or 11:08 or 11:15 am... but at least I'm not standing by the door fuming.
Soooo... I'm slowly learning that I can use those snippets of time productively. And I'm always totally amazed at how much I can get done in a short amount of time.
30 Minute Walks = Long Distances
The other thing I'm learning is that... you can walk quite a ways in 30 minutes! As I trudge along the virtual Camino... I am tracking my walks with my fitness app. So 20 minutes there... 30 minutes there... 40 minutes there... 18 minutes there. All of those little walks add up surprisingly quickly. Yesterday, I did 3 little walks (21, 20 and 28 minutes) which added up to 5 km in total... or about 10,000 steps.
Perhaps it's because there is a "reward" at the end of this "walk"? A shiny medal? I do tend to be motivated by little things like badges and challenges and medals and stickers and a progress tracker. Is that what this is about?
Stuck Project
Because I really would like to take this insight into walking and translate it into getting some "stuck" projects moving on my to-do list.
There's one project that's been stymieing me since June of 2022. A research buddy (I've never met him) from Poland wrote a short bio of a person of interest to me. This person used to be friends with my father back in Berlin, when they were both boys.
The Polish researcher would like the bio translated into English. He ran the document through Google Translate and asked me to go over the English translation and adjust it so that it reads well. Because while Google Translate is amazing... it's got a few quirks that lead to some odd passages.
There are 12 chapters in this bio, about 70 pages in total. I have done Chapters 1 to 6 and have been stuck on Chapter 7 for months now. There are only 27 pages left in the Word documents and... I am just stuck.
Now, it's not an easy job either, but it's not thaaaatttt hard. I just keep avoiding it. I open the document in Word and say "Today is the day..." and then get distracted by other things. I'll come back to it "later"... "tomorrow"... "next week"... and here we are... still not done!
But... Chapter 7 is "only" 4.5 pages in Word. That is nothing. I know that if I just get started... I will be back into it and could easily get the rest of the document done in a week. I just need to get started.
I don't have to work on it for an hour or two hours. I don't NEED an hour or two hours. All I need is 30 minutes. Just 30 minutes. Surely I can work on it for 30 minutes?? You would think. I'd much rather research productivity techniques for hours than actually get this project completed!
The Pomodoro Technique
And... we're back to the tomato (pomodoro in Italian)... as in the cute tomato timer pictured above. It's a simple technique. Set the timer for 25 minutes... work like a fiend... and then take a 5 minute break. Rinse and repeat for 4 sessions and then take a longer break. Simple. And I've never done it. Oh, I've known about it for years but somehow... it just never grabbed me.
But maybe now is the time to try it. Just set a timer... and work on this damn document for 25 minutes! "Later"... "this afternoon"... "tomorrow"... Nope. Right now. Wish me luck.
***opens document***
OFFS... (Oh for F**ks Sake!!) I have marginal comments already done for the Chapters 7-10 document. I forgot about that. It was my first sweep of the document. I'm farther along than I thought... Sigh.
***sets timer***
And... three Pomodoro timers later... or 1.5 hours later, I have finished Chapters 7 to 10. The end is in sight. Only 10 more pages to go.
I have to admit, I did lose track of the Pomodoro timer and ended up working through the 5 minute breaks... ah well... It did work in terms of getting me started! Just a small step... that added up to a significant amount of time. Same as in walking... a few short walks... adds up to a good distance!
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