Monday 16 August 2010

3 Days of Tomatos

I've been umming and aahing over looking at the Pomodoro Technique as a way of personally increasing my capacity to focus on the task at hand, having heard bits about it on Twitter feeds.

Finally, I bit the bullet, and spent some money on the book 'Pomodoro Technique Illustrated' by Staffan Noteberg (Pragmatic Bookshelf) and read it.

So, all I need is a timer, pen, paper and that's it. Well, that I can achieve.

I had a go the first day after reading the book, and thought I had done reasonably well, but then it all went out the window.

So, two weeks later, (last Thursday to be exact) I decide to try again. In earnest.

What a success!

Although I have made a few errors in judging how many pomodoro certain tasks will take (which actually shows that some jobs needed cutting into more smaller tasks) I have felt more focused throughout the day and felt at the end, I have achieved what I needed to.

I have averaged 10 pomodoro over the last 3 working days, and feel in that this is a realistic target. Tomorrow, plan for 10 - lets see if I can keep at this.

Anyone who is reading this, and finds themselves procrastinating, then I recommend this at the moment. A 5 minute break every 25 minutes really helps, and it is very easy to concentrate on task for just 25 minutes at a time.

The biggest downside I find - my alarm goes off, and the song on my iTunes hasn't finished.

1 comment:

Phillip Smith said...

That's hilarious: I *also* started experimenting with the Pomodoro technique last week. We should start a Perl + Pomodoro support group -- Perlmodoros?