The behavior I targeted was taking disproportionately long breaks throughout the day and in between tasks. From Sunday morning to Monday night, I measured the amount of time I spent doing actual work versus taking a break. I took note of qualitative data with a connection circle and feedback loop model. On Sunday, I went to a friend’s house and studied and was able to focus on work for 5 hours with only an hour break in total. On Monday, I stayed in my room and tried to complete some upcoming deadlines. However, because there was a lot of assignments and the work required doing something I don’t feel good at and , I was disengaged and very addictive apps. This inadvertently lead to longer breaks. I found myself taking an hour long break for about only 20-30 minutes of work done. Near the end of the day, I decided to use a Pomodoro timer and surprisingly, it worked really well and I was able to focus for 45 minutes with 15 minute breaks. However, this was most effective for the first 45 minutes, and my performance started to decline on the second round. I also knew for a long time that I was mentally exhausted, which contributed to a lot of my behavior patterns, as seen in the feedback loop diagram. Next time, I will use Pomodoro more, and try working more with friends, as these helped the most with my time management.
