I ran a marathon once. If you have actually ever met me – this is more surprising than it sounds. As a round, middle aged lady, I don’t exactly fit the “marathon runner” mold.

And, the marathon took me almost 7 hours to complete. So, one might say I didn’t exactly “run” the marathon – I ran and walked and ran and walked… and that is the whole point. But, I took 6 months, I trained and I did it. And, I like the experience so much, I went on to complete a century (100 mile) bike ride and a triathlon. So, if I can do it, ANYONE can 🙂

I owe my first marathon experience to Jeff Galloway.

Jeff Galloway teaches people how to run marathons. His method has even fast runners taking walk breaks every so often. If your body gets breaks, you run faster when you are running. The “real” runners would run 9 minutes and rest 1. Beginners would run a minute then walk a minute. I never got past beginner – but I finished.

The same principle works when you are trying to get things done. When I try to hammer out 15 blog posts all at once, I get tired, I get distracted, the siren of Facebook calls my name.

When I set a timer for 30 minutes, I work much harder knowing my time is limited. My favorite app for managing this is Pomodone – http://pomodoneapp.com/ – it connects to both Asana and ToDoist – so I can pull tasks in, work on them and check them off.

At the end of each of my running breaks, I really looked forward to talking with the other people in my group. I met a lot very interesting people from Coast Guard officers, to nuns to reality stars while training. It was worth running for the 60 second long conversation breaks. When I’m working, I look forward to 5 minutes with Facebook or Google. Or, just having the opportunity to get up, stretch my legs and make myself some hot chocolate. And, I find I get a lot more done.

Do you use a timer when you work? What method works best for you? Reply and let me know.