Using a timer to boost your focus: a quick guide

A simple trick to improve your concentration

Often, we’ll be told that we should work more efficiently. We’ll hear the ‘what’: that we should “set a time limit” to finish tasks. We’ll hear ‘why’: Parkinson’s law, “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” We might even hear the ‘when’: the time of day at which you work most effectively. But rarely, will we hear the ‘how.’ How do we actually incorporate time limits on tasks to boost our workflow?

Well first, it’s best to know what not to do. Simply allocating 20 minutes to this task will do very little. Your mind might wander for the first five, ideas may start coming to you by the ten-minute mark and before you know it… 20 minutes is up. And you haven’t finished the task. So, what’s the ‘correct’ way?

Here is how — breaking it down and setting a timer

Often, 20 minutes is too long. It gives us time to procrastinate. We need small, achievable sub-tasks that help us achieve our overall goal

But what goal? Well, that’s the first step. Set a goal. Not just ‘learn about X’ but a specific, SMART goal.

E.g. Develop a clear, systematic approach to taking notes on the next non-fiction book I read.

Then break it down into micro chunks.

E.g.,

5 minutes: brainstorm different notetaking strategies

5 minutes: list 3 key advantages and disadvantages of each

2 minutes: determine your purpose for writing notes

3 minutes: choose a strategy that best fulfils the purpose, using the advantages and disadvantages to make a decision

Of course, this assumes you are aware of good notetaking strategies, but the purpose is just to illustrate how a task can be broken down.

Are you still unable to focus? We’re not done yet!

The second key step is to use a timer for each sub-task, and make sure it’s visible.

Then, when your mind starts to wander, you’ll see the timer and realise you don’t have much time left. This forces you to focus, because believe me, five minutes is not a lot of time to brainstorm different notetaking strategies.

Now, you might be wondering, what happens if you don’t finish? You have two options. One, finish off the task quickly (preferably with the timer still ringing in the background to remind you to focus). Two, stop. Yes, that’s worth repeating, stop. Before you look away in shock and think you’re telling me I’ve done all this quality work, got into a great state of focus and now I can’t even finish off my work? it’s worth understanding why. When you stop, you realise that the deadline is real and next time, this will push you to work with more intensity to finish within time. Now, this doesn’t mean you can’t finish, you can come back later that day or the next day. Just stop for the time being. Then, your timer is meaningful.

Important note: This is best for tasks where you're more focused on efficiency, as opposed to the quality of your output. I find it a great compliment to the 80 percent rule!