Posts Tagged ‘Pomodoro’

Analyzing the Pomodoro Method

Thursday, December 23rd, 2010

In earlier posts I summarized the Pomodoro Method for time management.  Since than, I have to admit,  I wasn’ t able to persist in using it on a daily basis.  However, I did find it to be very useful to prevent me from diving into lengthy spans of procrastination and low-productivity.   Even one or two days of it, give back the feeling of actually getting stuff done. This is often enough to get everything back on track.

An important part of the Pomodoro Method is to have dedicated time assigned for a specific task, ensuring your full attention and focus. However, I believe this method mainly works for me because it decouples your breaks from your natural breaks in attention. On a normal working day you need to take breaks. Usually you will take them at times you mind starts to wander, energy is low or things start to get painful. You stopped working because you don’t feel like working anymore. Making it very hard to find motivation to start up again: it wasn’t going well when you started this break and now you don’t feel any better.

With the Pomodoro method, taking a break is fixed. Because you are forced to take it when you are in the middle of something, the feeling is entirely different.  At first I  felt ridiculous to take the break now, instead of just finishing your task.  However, after a while, I learned that this feeling ensures that you can easily start up again after a break. As you were making good progress before taking the break, you are eager to continue and finish that task at hand.

Getting Things Done: The Pomodoro Way

Sunday, October 17th, 2010

A few days ago I wrote about procrastination and by coincidence I came across an article about changing your working method to embrace the interruptions, instead of trying to find long stretches of concentration (‘the zone’). It is a nice read, however, more importantly in the comment section I came across something that really appealed to me: The Pomodoro Technique.   I had seen it before, but it didn’t jump out to me at that time.

The basic idea is:  work for 25 minutes on a single task, with a timer ticking back the time left  and then take a break. This is augmented by a few other important steps, such as: noting down your distractions, evaluate them only after the 25 minutes are up and crossing of the completed intervals per task.

As I don’t have a proper timer yet, I looked for a software one, that works under Ubuntu as well  and came across:  Focus Booster.   It makes the ticking sound and also very nicely automatically starts your 5 minute break timer after time is up.

I just started using it, so I’ve only done a few of these ‘Pomodoro’ intervals, but I feel very confident that this will actually work as it makes you very aware of the distractions you need to avoid/delay  and the time you have available.  Starting the timer gives a feel of commitment about doing something NOW instead of  in a few minutes. Furthermore, having a timer tick back, give you back a bit of that deadline stress that makes you feel productive, without the disadvantages of real deadlines. And, not unimportant: it feels good to cross of real productive time.