A Day In The Life: How The Tomato Method Can Make You Insanely Productive

How cuckoo is your time management? Here’s my mock nonfiction humor article in Defenestration.

Schools implement a dizzying assortment of district-mandated procedures for teachers and students: No Child Left Behind, 21st Century initiatives, and The Common Core. The latest rollout: The Tomato Method. How’s it going? Let’s find out.

One inspired teacher, overwhelmed with work-life imbalance, instituted The Tomato Method not only in her middle school classroom but throughout every aspect of life. Here’s her day to remember.

Day In The Life reporter and crew met with teacher, mom, and wife, Mrs. Byrna Ana Peele. She’s using a tomato-shaped kitchen timer to help her be more productive and efficient with her minutes, hours, and seconds. We asked her, “What’s the Tomato Method and how does it work?”

“I’ll show you. To answer, I’ll need,” Mrs. Peele said while counting seconds and calculated, “if one tomato equals thirty minutes, my morning at work should amount to four tomatoes.”

As a previously relaxed Mrs. Peele set the knob, her nostrils flared under the high-efficiency, time-management pressure.