[Productivity] The Pomodoro Technique

Here’s a quick introduction to the “Pomodoro Technique” by Francesco Cirillo, a method to increase motivation and to use time more efficiently. 

Idea

The basic idea is to split your work time into repeating 30 minute cycles.

• 25 minutes worth of pure undistracted work focussing on not more than 1 subject
• 5 minutes break

As soon as you sucessfully completed one cycle, you get one symbolic pomodoro as reward. (the pomodoro = tomatoe relates to the shape of the kitchen timer Francesco originally used for the time tracking).

If you cannot stay focused, get interrupted or start procrastinating, you don’t get the pomodoro. It’s that simple. If you stay strict with the pomodoro, what you get is a honest currency for efficiently spent work time, a nice value you can look at at the end of a long work day.

Reality

• Being on the pomodoro route enables you to evaluate and compare your daily work performance. You will start to challenge yourself and do a daily race for more pomodoros on your highscrore board… ideally. In fact the first days it was a very sobering experience to see how many pomodoros I earned, compared to the potential work time. But at the same time, I felt the urge to improve = motivation.
• The timer aspect. By forcing yourself to keep the 25:5 timing strictly, you are on a permanent speed run, trying to get things done before the cycle is over. That’s a nice motivator to get things done quickly, instead of delaying and pushing uncomfortable elements endlessly.

Tools

For the daily usage I found the free timer application Pomodairo useful. To keep the daily earnings of pomodoros always in sight I improvised a score board made of a rubber and red headed “pomodoro pins” 

For more science on the Pomodoro Technique, I recommend checking out Francesco Cirillo’s website.