The Pomodoro method

As students, we spend a fair share of our time, at home studying by ourselves. If you are anything like me, I love to study and learn new things, but time management has never been my forte. Countless times I have been focusing on an essay and I look up and it has been two hours and I have not even written the first sentence. However, this all changed one day.

I was at my wit's end and was getting irritated because I could not focus, no matter how hard I tried. But then, I went onto YouTube and, low and behold, a Pomodoro video popped into my recommendation videos. It was a long video, over two hours, but it had the Ravenclaw suit in the thumbnail, and as any nerd would say, I had to click. Once I had started playing the track, I was hooked.

The Pomodoro method is a study tool which was created by Francesco Cirillo in the 80s. The method is comprised of usually four 25-minute study times or ‘pomodoros’, named after the tomato timer Francesco used. These ‘pomodoros’ are separated by short five-minute breaks.

The method has become so popular, it has been incorporated into videos on YouTube. Ambience sounds (rain, fire crackling, book pages etc.) represent the study time and music represents the breaks. Recently, there has been a few channels that produce such videos and base them off popular films such as Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and Jurassic Park.

As a proud Ravenclaw, I love the Ravenclaw Common Room Pomodoro track, it allows me to get into the study zone and focus on my work. I am a procrastinator but having regular breaks helped me focus on my work. The thought of having a break coming up gave me the motivation to power through. 

Since finding out about this method, I have been using it in every study session and have even created a playlist. This playlist is the first thing I open at the start of my session and the last time to close. To help anyone who might be struggling with time management, I have put a link to my playlist below.

Hannah’s Pomodoro List

Hannah x