When I first heard about Pomodoro, I have to he honest: I was skeptical. My first reaction? “C’mon, I am able to manage my time, I don’t need any technique”.
I was wrong. While it is true that I am perfectly able to manage my time, it is also true that there can better ways to do it. A while ago I was really overwhelmed with projects and duties so I thought: “why don’t I give Pomodoro a try? Just one week. And if it doesn’t work, no worries.”
How do you ensure you wake up in the morning? Set an alarm on your clock. I do it, otherwise I sleep until midday. Pomodoro is all about setting up a personalised alarm clock to get the most out of your work.
Put simply, it’s a time management technique which recommends dividing your time into 25 minute chunks. Every chunk of 25 minutes is equivalent to 1 Pomodoro, that is a time span of uninterrupted work. After completing a Pomodoro you can take a 5 minute break. You might think: “I can do more than that!”. Sure thing. But … Let’s suppose you work 4 hours in a row. Then take a break (lunch).
I have been in this situation many times. Why didn’t the design progress? Was it too much facebook? Too much time trying to find the perfect glow effect? I wasn’t able to remember why I couldn’t feel the progress. But, with this technique, when a Pomodoro ends I am prone to measure my productivity and, if not satisfied, improve it. It is much easier to remember and check the activity of 25 minutes than the one of 4 hours. This is just one advantage of time chunking.
It is a well known technique. Chunk your project in tasks, chunk tasks in subtasks, chunk your time in spans. The advantages are terrific. First of all you are forced to stay focused on one thing at a time. Tempted to check Twitter? You can do that when the Pomodoro ends. I am not saying tomorrow, I am saying 25 minutes tops. It’s not that long to wait even for the die-hard Twitterati.
The second advantage is about motivation. How many times do you get bored with a task? With Pomodoro you know the task won’t last long which therefore makes resisting the stifling effect of boredom pretty easy. Your reward for doing this will be five minutes of rest and (probably) another nicer task.
The most valuable advantage to me is about naming a Pomodoro. There are many applications that help you to adopt the Pomodoro technique. I downloaded a Pomodoro which allows you to set a timer and to provide a title.
This helps avoid the scenario where you start one task and end up working on another. By means of this technique you are “forced” to state:
“Ok, now for the next 25 minutes I will work on X”.
If you lose track of what you were doing simply look at the timer and you’ll find out. Moreover, providing a title means that you already have some plan about your duties for the day, and those duties are pre-organized in chunks of 25 minutes. This is invaluable, because you know where you start and you know where you want to be at the end of the day.
If a task doesn’t fit 25 minutes you can divide it up or use more than one Pomodoro. When a task is too short you can group it with similar ones. If you get interrupted you can try to postpone the interruption (your colleague will not spontaneously combust in less than 25 minutes) or break the Pomodoro if the deal is really urgent. Just make sure it’s logged, because at the end of the day you can check if the disruption was down to you or simply out of your hands.
This technique won’t necessarily solve everybody’s problems, but it’s certainly worth trying out if you feel that you’re not working to your optimum. My advice would be to give it a week and if it doesn’t work for you then you haven’t lost anything. But, if it does work then you have discovered a way to improve your personal and professional life.
Photo by elgiulio
