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For you who prefer listening to reading, this post is also available as an episode of the ""Done!"" podcast:

You can have both

Chris­t­ian Alfreds­son shared with me a clever solu­tion he came up with to both work focused and lis­ten to great ​“work songs” dur­ing work: He has put togeth­er pre-made, 25-minute playlists with per­fect music of var­i­ous genres.

When he needs to work focused for ​“one Pomodoro”, he choos­es a suit­able playlist and starts play­ing it. When the music stops, the focus inter­val is over and a nec­es­sary break takes place. Smart!

You should try it too — like I did!

Do this

If the music Pomodoro tech­nique sounds like a trick you’d enjoy, put togeth­er your 25-minute playlist now.

You can com­pose it how­ev­er you want. What if you choose to have the same ​“last song” in your Pomodoro playlists as a sub­tle sig­nal that the focus inter­val is almost over? How about mak­ing lists for dif­fer­ent types of tasks? A playlist with upbeat songs for repet­i­tive ​“get it done” work, while one with more ethe­re­al sounds for longer, unin­ter­rupt­ed think­ing tasks.

If you don’t feel like mak­ing your own playlist (or want to avoid cre­at­ing every­thing your­self all the time), search for such playlists on Spo­ti­fy. There are plen­ty!

Take time with music

If you use Pomodoro playlists when you need to focus, you’ll get help con­cen­trat­ing and keep­ing track of time. You don’t have to set a timer or find a fan­cy count­down app. Plus, you’ll be remind­ed to take breaks reg­u­lar­ly, which is invalu­able if you, like me, tend to forget.

What do you do?

What Pomodoro playlist do you use? Do you even have one on Spo­ti­fy? Feel free to share your favorite music, genre or artist while working!

(Did you know that a study has shown that we work bet­ter togeth­er with the right music?)