Tech Blog

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Want, as I am, to always find new and cool things for my machine and my workday, a post title like— Pomodoro Desktop puts a tomato in your menubar —is bound to catch my attention. Tomato? Really? Okay, I'll bite, what's this all about. Turns out it's not about fruit at all (remember tomatoes are technically fruits), but an interesting approach to getting things done during the day. The essence is working for 25 minutes on a particular, specific task then taking a 5 minutes break. Yes, there are some details to making it all work, but that's the guts of it. The guts of The Pomodoro Technique— The Pomodoro Technique™ .

First, the whole Pomodoro thing (pomodoro is tomato in Italian, btw), comes from the fact that when Francesco Cirillo invented this technique back in the 80s he used a simple kitchen timer. His timer, as you can guess, was shaped like a tomato (I had one shaped like an onion…wonder what the Onion Technique would be like?). So here is how it all works (as best as I can describe, since I've only started using it since the morning): first thing in the morning you make a to do list in order of priority. Then you start working on the list…but when you start you set a timer for 25 mins. You work without interruption (like "oh I need to call" or "I should email") on that task for the entire 25 minutes. Then you take a 5 minute break. The term "break" means, do something different to recharge yourself. Start the laundry, get a snack, answer some calls or something. Then when the five minutes are up you either go back to the task. Tasks can take longer than 25 minutes to complete, you just don't work on them for more than 25 mins at a stretch. The idea, it seems, is to break the day into focused chunks of activity so that you spend less time spinning your wheels and more time doing wheelies.

To start off with the Pomodoro Technique, read the free ebook on the Pomodoro Technique (the book is on the site). It's about 40-ish pages and took (not surprisingly) about 25 minutes to read. Now the next thing is the whole timer and notes aspect of the system. This is where Pomodoro Desktop comes in— Pomodoro | Pomodoro —the app manages the times and alarms for getting to work and such. It lacks the system of to dos and notes that is part of the technique. I'm using Yojimbo for that at the moment. Right now I'm not going for "perfect" I'm going for "let's give it a go", so I'm not noting everything as I might later on.

So, what are my first impressions? The work, break, work (after four 25 min sessions the breaks are for 30 mins), is good for me. I'm often guilty of working for a while and getting burning out for the day way early. Today, I feel like I've been pretty productive. I've completed several "Pomodoros" (the unit of work) and therefore taken several breaks. One problem I'm facing how to manage the times when what ever I'm going is done in less than 25 minutes. I'll have to re-read that section on what the right thing to do is, however the times I've hit that wall, I did focus on "what is related to this task that I can do…" that then helped me push the ball a little more forward (often I'm waiting for feedback or info so the "work" has to stop). I started this post and when the 25 mins were up, I had a 10 min break. Which I used to switch over laundry, start another load of laundry, and grab a pop. Now in a second "Pomodoro" I'm finishing this post, posting it, then starting another post. Seems efficient. At least for now.