One Week of Animedoro

The Pomodoro technique (as defined by Todoist) is when you set a timer for 25 minutes (work/study) and have 5 minutes of rest or 50 minutes of work/study and 10 minutes of rest. The premise is for people who have a hard time focusing or need a way to set timed goals, be able to get things done within intervals of 25–50 minutes and be able to rest/ have a reward of 5–10 minutes. I, myself, have used the Pomodoro technique for the past few years.

Last week, I found out about the Animedoro by chance on YouTube because of YouTube Channels such as John Chen (first time I ever heard of it), NicolesVlogs, and Breanna Quan. As someone who has trouble prioritizing tasks and focusing (especially when you’re a freelancer and a college student) as well as looking for time to watch anime/overall series, I found this to be a complete win-win situation. The premise of the animedoro is to work for 40 minutes to 1 hour and have a 20–25 minute break (which is basically one episode of an anime). Now, you don’t necessarily need to watch anime for this to work. It can really be any show as long as it is 20–25 minutes long (not counting the intros or outros). There is a website where you can set the timer for the Animedoro/Animebreak which helps out a lot, but you can always set a timer on your phone or computer.

Now, on day one, I chose Season 4 of Miraculous Ladybug while planning English lessons for my students as well as working on certain tasks for my proposal and overall research. At first, it started to work, and then I ended up watching an entire season because I wanted to know what happened between the characters (also the season made it impossible to not watch the next episode immediately). I was able to accomplish writing a post for that week as well as brainstorming things to do for the proposal and for upcoming lessons. The next day, I went with Squid Game. Now, I know that each episode of Squid Game is an hour long; however, it did make the Animedoro and I was able to enjoy working while being excited about seeing what happened next each episode— which meant that I was able to get A LOT done within the 40 minutes. I was able to do this for around 5–6 days. I did get sick one of the days so I couldn’t really work without having my back hurting like heck and my head spinning.

I also liked the fact that I was able to work without being interrupted so often as I would with a Pomodoro. I was able to get a lot of things done once I started to get into a flow state. When I did a Pomodoro, I would get interrupted whenever the flow state would happen, which meant that continuing things after the break would be rather difficult. With the Animedoro, I found that I was a lot more rested/energized and I would get a lot of things done afterwards. Whenever the timer stopped, it would be exactly the time where my body and brain would start feeling tired/ sending signals that it’s time to take a break.

Overall, I rather enjoyed using this method. Not only has it helped improve my focus with work and study, it also gave me a way to finally catch up with anime/shows that I’ve been putting off since I started working as a freelancer and began studying for my master’s degree. If you have trouble focusing on your own work/studies, I highly recommend this. I am really happy with the results and I plan on continuing to use this in the future. That’s all for today. As always, thank you for reading. I hope you all have a lovely rest of your day. Until next time, keep your paws and bowls of ramen up, everyone! Nya!