Ability to see how your time is spent day-to-day, and where to cut back.Ability to estimate more accurately how long a task or set of tasks will take, leading to more productivity over time.Ability to deal with interruptions effectively.There are some key tips to help you towards pomodoro success (Picture: Getty Images/iStockphoto) What are the benefits of the Pomodoro Technique? Obviously, there’s a long way to go, but I definitely plan to continue using the Pomodoro Technique going forward. I didn’t find myself squashing pomodoros and I rarely ran over the initial 25 minutes. This is because I felt I could estimate how long a task would take much better than before. The unplanned card gave me a solution to a problem I barely knew I had and I found myself much more focused with fewer internal interruptions during pomodoros.ĭay 4: I managed to finish all my pomodoros without distraction, a huge success, and my unplanned card was definitely shorter.ĭay 5: Another day of no failed pomodoros, day 5 definitely felt like a small turning point. I also forgot to reset the timer on several occasions.ĭay 3: Despite one or two failed pomodoros, day 3 was a success. That being said, I would find myself forgetting about the unplanned card and becoming distracted. I was trying my best with the internal process and was successful the majority of the time. Obviously, internal interruptions were frequent and most of the time I’d let them carry me away, so I didn’t really see the point.ĭay 2: After my call with Cirillo, things were much clearer. I wasn’t aware of ‘Dino’ or the unplanned card, so I was just using the timings to get me through the day. I used the technique on only five out of the seven days (weekends are not for productivity, surely?) and this is how it went.ĭay 1: Before my chat with Cirillo, I didn’t fully understand the technique. Unfortunately for my ego, it actually helped. When I knew I’d be trying the Pomodoro Technique for a week I was intrigued but hesitant, because, to my core, I hated the concept of a ‘productivity technique’. Once the pomodoro is over, and after your break, you can decide whether the tasks you wrote on your unplanned card are urgent, and therefore will be the focus of your next pomodoro, of if they can wait. This is important: whatever internal interruption your mind presents you with – maybe it’s calling a friend or responding to an email – write it on a separate index card, the ‘unplanned card’. While working, you’re likely to encounter Dino. Use an ‘unplanned card’ to organise interruptions If a task is likely to take longer than 25 minutes, it can be split up between multiple pomodoros.ģ.
If a task will take between 10 to 25 minutes, it should be the only focus for a single pomodoro. If the task will take under 10 minutes, you can combine it with other small tasks. Focus on your chosen task/s for 25 minutes Choose a task you want to complete and set a timer for 25 minutesĪt the start of every pomodoro (25-minute interval) you write the task you want to complete on your card.Ģ.
The method is all about working with the limits of our focus (Picture: Getty Images/iStockphoto) How to implement the Pomodoro TechniqueĪt the most basic level, the pomodoro technique requires just three things: a timer, a pack of index cards and a pen.Įach index card will represent a new pomodoro. Often, if you’re anything like me, when you set out to do a task, it’s almost impossible to concentrate on one thing at a time.Įnter: Dino (don’t worry, we’ll explain this more in a moment). To explain this process, Cirillo uses a toy dinosaur he keeps in his office, Dino, who is a metaphor for those internal interruptions. So we need an ‘internal process’ to deal with such an existential problem. ’While the timer is the most iconic aspect of the technique, it is not the main feature,’ says Cirillo.Īccording to Cirillo, those internal interruptions he experienced while studying are mere symptoms of the real problem we have with time, which, he says, is that ‘time is a human limit’. After four pomodoros, you take a longer break of around 15 to 20 minutes.
This forms the basis for the Pomodoro Technique: you work for 25 minutes (one pomodoro) and you rest for five minutes. ‘I found a tomato timer and bet myself I could focus for two minutes. It worked.’Ĭirillo then began to up the number of minutes until he found his sweet spot: 25 minutes. You may have heard of the Pomodoro Technique, named after the classic tomato-shaped timers by Italian university student Francesco Cirillo in the 1980s.Ĭirillo tells .uk: ’I had an exam that I needed to study for and I couldn’t concentrate for more than 30 seconds, because I had a lot of internal interruptions, from my mind.