The system operates on the belief that by dividing your work and breaks into regular, short increments you can avoid feeling overwhelmed by a looming task while also avoiding burn out. Developed in the 1980’s by Francesco Cirillo, this time management technique gets its name from the common tomato shaped kitchen timer. I stumbled upon The Pomodoro Technique in an effort to manage my distractions and avoid both goldfish-attention-span procrastination and all-night-study-burn-out. Oddly enough, the method I’ve found for combating my procrastination problem and completing my work punctually and happily involves a tomato and taking more breaks. Case in point: If I set out to study for five hours at home, it sometimes turns into one hour of studying and four hours of checking my e-mail, preparing elaborate meals, and scrolling through seasonal sports gear sales on Amazon (I dislike most sports but I love good deals). This science is based entirely upon my own research and is most likely skewed, but the experiential evidence is strong. I have a confession: For every year I get older, my attention span shrinks by five percent.