Time management has always been a problem of mine. I don’t know whether it’s because I have a lifestyle (call that a job) that means lots of interruptions. or whether its because, like you, I have lots of interests.

At the end of the day do you find that you ended up not achieving that which you set out to do? You got hooked into all kinds of stuff despite having had a do-list, either as a proper list or as a mind map? So you search for time management tips.

Enter Sonia Simone. She’s a blogger, like me, but much more professional. And here is a little idea you could use from her.

Get hold of a timer. Something that can count down for an hour.

Decide what you want to do that day, the core issues, and of course, write it down. Thats another tip, by the way, from the great Jim Rohn: “Never start the day until it is finished on paper.”

Then pick the issue you want to handle.

Set the timer to count down for 50 minutes and get cracking. At the end of the 50 minutes, IRRESPECTIVE of where you’ve got to. STOP. Take a goof-off break for 10 minutes.

Then start again.

It’s absolutely amazing, it works.

The first time I tried it you can’t believe how tidy the office got before I hit the button. Classic procrastination behavior. It seems my brain knew that I was not going to allow myself to be interrupted for the 50 minutes and that I was going to concentrate. And I did.

Try it.

P.S. The reason its important to take the break is that its known to improve creativity. You have ideas in the break that you can use during your next work session. Its called the Remeniscence Effect. And the reason you break, irrrespective of where you are up to, is because studies suggest that your recall may be better when you get interrupted. Its called the Ziegarnik Effect after Bluma Ziegarnik, a Soviet psychologist who passed in 1988. Its the kind of stuff we talk about in my workshops when we got on to time management tips.