Helping you start off your week with a sense of achievement and progress.

When we’re working at home, we often miss our familiar routines and the motivating feeling of working alongside peers in the office, lab, or library. Without this structure to our days, it can be hard to decide which tasks we should to focus on. Where should we start to build up some momentum for the week ahead?

The Focus Zone is a new structured time management session designed to give you space and motivation to tick off some tasks on your to-do list. No need to chat or turn your camera on – just join the session with a list of specific tasks, and commit to setting aside the time to complete them.

We will be using the ‘Pomodoro’ time management technique. Each session will consist of four ‘Pomodoros’ – 25-minute intervals of work, with five minute breaks between each one. Select an achievable task to complete during each Pomodoro, and at the end of the session you can take a break for lunch knowing you have ticked four things off your to-do list.

Work on whatever you want, whether it’s writing, reading, or admin tasks. It might be…

• Marking up edits to a draft piece of writing
• Filling in a form that is due soon
• Searching for and filing new publications
• Responding to an email that you have been putting off
• Tidying up the entries in your reference manager
• Drafting a conference abstract

The first sessions will take place on every Monday in June. After registering on Surrey Self-Service you will be sent a Zoom link on the morning of the session. An RDP trainer will structure and facilitate each session, providing time updates during each interval. After the final Pomodoro, you are welcome to stay and chat, ask questions, or reflect on what you’ve been working on.