Mumbled Musings

Pomodoro is the Italian for tomato The Pomodoro technique is where you set the clock, and then work solidly until the bell rings. You then have a break. The length of the session can be varied, but 25 minutes is generally considered to be the optimum. The pattern of breaks is 5 minutes after the first three sessions then 15 minutes. I've been playing around with this technique for around 10 years now. 

A misty morning on my dawn walk I heard Max Mosely on the radio suggesting that going for a walk in the morning helps you sleep at night.  The theory is that the light sets your body clock, so that by the end of the day it knows it is time for a snooze.  I've no idea if that is true, but it seems to work.  I gave it a try and sure enough I found it easier to sleep.  Suggestion is very powerful, so that might be enough to explain it.  But the result is well worth having whatever the mechanism.  I have continued the habit since last April.  I have missed very few days.

Farage - back in the days when you could still get milkshake Farage is different to a lot of the politicians on the right, and the Tories are right to fear him. I like listening to him and I have found that he often spots the key thing about a debate. He combines this with a rare species of integrity. He has been campaigning to get out of Europe for much longer than it has been profitable to do so. When he joined UKIP nobody would have thought it was the route to anything other than obscurity.

So these are the tools I am using in my attempt to become hyper-productive for a year. Trello - in essence Trello is simply about managing lists. I have lots of lists and Trello helps me keep them in order and share them with the team. It’s an essential tool. I find it particularly convenient as a way of managing my emails. I have them all forwarded to Trello Board, from where they could be deleted or assigned to an area of activity.

I have somehow  contrived to give myself an enormous workload for the coming year. This is not good news. I have a long track record of not getting much done. I’m also getting on in years. In my early 60s I don’t have the energy and enthusiasm I had when I was younger. Not only do I sleep much longer than I used to, when I’m awake I can no longer concentrate for as long as I used to be able to.

So one year into Brexit, and it is still a topic interesting enough for the Independent to feel that carrying out a poll on the details of what we think about will be newsworthy.

The Lansdowne Hotel in Eastbourne – where I came up with a rather unexpected New Year’s resolution Right up until yesterday I was planning to cut down on my use of Twitter this year. But I have woken up this morning and decided that for the new year my goal is to give up Twitter altogether for 12 months. Much as I love it, it is just taking too big a chunk of my life.