Maybe I've mentioned this once or twice. I have a mild but pronounced case of adult ADD, and sometimes I have a hard time focusing and maintaining concentration. I don't remember how I learned about it, but I just started using a time management system called Pomodoro (named, apparently, after a tomato-shaped kitchen timer that the method's inventor once used to time work sessions.) It's very simple. You set the Pomodoro timer (now a mobile app, of course, although Luddites can still purchase the tomato timer, assuming that a Luddite would use a mass-produced plastic mechanical timer), and you stay focused on your task until the timer runs out, in 25 minutes. You then take a five-minute break, during which you can do anything you want. Each 25-minute work period is called, of course, a Pomodoro.
It works pretty well. The idea is that you can do anything, even if it's boring or tedious, for 25 minutes, especially when you know that there's an end in sight. Sometimes, I find that I'm motivated to work faster to see how much I can accomplish during a single Pomodoro. Other times, it's enough to just get through the Pomodoro without checking my phone, looking for something in my bag, getting up to get water, or whatever else I often do to avoid doing what I should be doing. Either way, I'm more productive.
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I'm not running a Pomodoro now, so whatever I'm writing here will likely be written in 30-second increments, interrupted by phone checks, the laundry timer, or what-the-hell-is-that-on-the-floor. I guess I should use Pomodoro for personal writing, too. I'm still working on my novel, and it's not going well. The less said the better. Except that I'm this close to just throwing the whole thing away and starting over, but I'm determined to continue. For what purpose and to what end, I have no idea. Maybe I just want to finish what I started, but that's what sent me back to school after an over 20-year absence, and look how that turned out.
Well, it actually turned out pretty well, in that I graduated, and summa cum laude, but it was an ordeal that I wouldn't care to repeat. And yet, I appear to be doing exactly that.
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I can't decide which is less fun: writing the book that I'm writing, or reading the one that I'm reading. I'm still slogging through the book about the Rothschilds, which has become considerably less interesting, but I feel compelled to finish it. Between the in-progress writing and the in-progress reading, the party never stops. It's like Purgatory for English majors.
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Another summer swim season is over, and the now-familiar paradox is in effect: That which I couldn't wait to come to an end has actually come to an end, and I miss it. I love summer swim team, but it's overwhelming, especially if you have a full-time real job in addition to your 10 or so swim team mom jobs. But it's so much fun, and I'm sad almost the minute it ends. Except the 6:30 Saturday morning part, of course. I won't miss that part at all.
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With summer swimming over, the end of summer itself is, sadly, not far behind. The weather has been shifting slightly. The temperature has dropped just a little each day for the past few days, and the humidity, dense and heavy last week, has evaporated. It's almost dark now, at 8:20 PM. It's still quite warm and pleasant, but it's a September kind of warm and pleasant.
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I still haven't used my Pomodoro timer for personal writing. And maybe that's why this post has taken three days to finish. But the novel took a very slight turn for the better today, even without the aid of a tomato. I'll take it, for now.
