Pomodoro Practicing
I have been recently inspired by Youtuber, medical doctor and more, Ali Abdaal, and took his class in productivity on Skillshare.
The Pomodoro Technique is introduced in the class. And yes, pomodoro is the word for tomato in Italian. It refers to the timer used in university in the late 1980's by the founder of the Pomodoro Technique, Francesco Cirillo.
In short, one pomodoro is 25 minutes of focused work. I will spare you the details of the full technique except to say that my practicing on the piano is now 25 minutes with focused practicing followed by a 5 minute break, and then another 25 minutes of practicing. This continues until I have four pomodoros. At that point, I take a longer break or return to a practice session later on in the day or evening.
So far I have seen good results. I set up checklists for the 25 minutes for the passage I am working on and create strategies to accomplish these small and attainable goals.
For me, having a defined amount of time with focused tasks is really helpful.