![]() That way, you can be more productive and effective without tiring yourself out needlessly. What this does is trick your brain into thinking something needs doing as a priority, when before you might have been multitasking, procrastinating and jumping from one task to another without much structure. After several chunks of this (each 25-minute interval called a pomodoro, after the creator Francesco Cirillo’s tomato-shaped kitchen timer), you take a bit of a longer break. ![]() ![]() ![]() The idea is to set a timer for 25 minutes, get as much work done in that time as you can, then take a 5-minute break. My mind ran to tomatoes, Italy and recipes ideas - the what now? He explained that he got this advice when writing his first book in Istanbul. My friend, Shaman Durek, gave me this brilliant tip-off - try the Pomodoro Technique, he said, in his booming L.A. The point of this blog post is to share the working technique that enabled me to write this book in a short window, keep up with all my other work and still maintain my sanity. I’m fast running out of time to create a book that is not only a shift away from H+H but is also about to try and explain and authentically do justice to an incredible ancient philosophy, as well as make it into a cookbook, and I’m surrounded by paper scribbles and voice notes and all the rest, and I still have to write, test and shoot all the recipes. So… there I am, back in the UK feeling absolutely relaxed and under strict instructions to take the next couple of months easy - the analogy is that your house is freshly renovated, but the paint and plaster are still wet, so great care is needed until it all beds in well. My Vata was through the roof and for the treatments to reach the cellular level I needed to get out of my head, into my body and calm the hell down. Let’s just say that my mind ran wild with the magic and the mysteries and the influence and the inspiration until my Vadiyas checked my pulse on the second week and banned me from screens, reading and work. a lot going on, but that’s another blog post. It served two purposes: one, to give me the break I needed and two, to be inspired by the Vaidyas there who were used to communicating the eastern holistic philosophy of Ayurveda into practical takeaways for the westerners who visited. A magical Ayurvedic paradise - basically super serene and really quite luxurious compared to the more rough and ready Ayurvedic Panchakarma places in India that I was familiar with. I realised to get this book done and to preserve my energy I was going to have to enhance my way of working.įast forward a month or so to spring 2017 and I travelled to the Himalayas to the beautiful enclaves of Vana. I’m a procrastinator when it comes to big projects at the best of times and, as a Vata type, I’m easily distracted and continuously lured away by other shiny things. ![]() I was getting deep into the incredibly exciting and fascinating world of Ayurveda, but struggling to actually get the book done. On top of that, my publication date for mid-2018 suddenly got brought forward a year, so I had to quickly get to work on drafting chapter ideas on the book every morning and evening either side of my usual schedule. During this time I got a new publisher for my latest vision - East by West the cookbook - and I was absolutely ecstatic but pretty much close to burnt out. Back in January 2017, I was not only recovering from some festive season excesses, but also from running my 3-month long East by West pop-up restaurant - which I had created and opened in just 10 days and was front and back of house on top of my usual work with Hemsley+Hemsley. ![]()
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