There are so many productivity methods and time management techniques out there and somehow they are all the key to unlocking a better you. I am more of the camp that you may work differently than I work, so for each technique, results may vary.
I came across one recently called the Pomodoro Technique, which takes its name from the Italian for tomato and is centered on using a little tomato kitchen timer. I am not about to turn this site into a guide on how to “get things done” so I won’t go into great detail, but this technique got me thinking about our time spent reading God’s Word.
In this system a pomodoro is a unit of time, 25 minutes. Simply put, you break down tasks in measures of pomodoros, and you take breaks between each one. You have a task, you set your timer, and you work on it for 25 minutes.
In our culture of non-stop multitasking, how often do we focus on one task for 25 minutes without interruption? Can you watch a half hour TV show without doing something else at the same time? Even just in writing this, I hear the dings of an email that I want to turn my attention toward. I trick myself into thinking everything must be done in the immediate, all at once, but the truth is: it can wait.
Is that your experience as you sit down to read, study, and pray? How often do you begin reading the Word and something interrupts? How long does it take? Ten minutes? Five? Does even one minute go by before something else seeks to take your attention? Our attention is one of the most valuable things we have, and who or what we give it to is a very important decision. And sometimes that decision isn’t only to what do we give attention, but what do we ignore? We can’t give our attention to everything all the time.
Try at least once this week to carve out 25 minutes, if only just to show that you can. I think we’ll be amazed at what we can do with “one pomodoro” of uninterrupted time spent before God, reading the Bible.
Year in the Bible 