Procrastination

Especially at home, it's often hard to concentrate and not constantly look at your phone or go to the fridge. On the Digital Detox page, we give you many helpful suggestions to help you reduce your smartphone consumption. Find out what else you can do to avoid procrastination and what tomatoes and salami have to do with it by reading on.

To start, it's helpful to get an overview of all your upcoming tasks. The Eisenhower Principle can help you manage your time by dividing tasks into four different sections. To do this, you assign each of your noted tasks to one of the following groups:

- important and urgent
- important, but not urgent
- not important, but urgent
- neither important nor urgent

First of all, you should focus on the important and urgent tasks. For important tasks that are not particularly urgent, it is best to set a date when you want to complete them. Tasks that are urgent, but not particularly important, you can possibly hand over to others. Tasks that are neither important nor urgent can be neglected and you don't have to pay attention to them. The principle helps you to structure your tasks and to distinguish relevant from less relevant tasks.

There are also some methods that can help you to work concentrated without getting distracted every few minutes.

One example is the Pomodoro technique: in this method, you specifically choose a task that you want to complete and write down which steps are necessary to do it. Then you get started:

- Set a timer of 25 minutes for concentrated work.
- Check off what you have done.
- Then 5 min break: In this break you can do everything you want - just don't continue working.
- After 4 x 25 min concentration phases: longer break of about 15 to 30 minutes.

By the way, the name of the method comes from the fact that its inventor Francesco Cirillo used a kitchen clock in the shape of a tomato for his time intervals.

Another tactic is the salami tactic. This one is about dividing your projects and tasks into small subtasks just like you would cut a salami sausage into thin slices to enjoy it. You then work on a small subtask at a time and take a short break after each task.