Hey ho, let’s Pomodoro

Or, how a little ticking tomato saved my (working) life

I used to be a terrible procrastinator.

Like some internet-enabled magpie, I flitted around the task in hand, distracted by shiny new emails, sparkly twitter notifications and general online stuff and nonsense.

Great if you want to keep up to date on your social networks and the latest YouTube sensation – not so great if you’re working to a deadline.

My task list management is now in tip-top condition (thanks to David Allen’s Getting Things Done method and Toodledo); my time management skills however were in less rude health.

Send in the ticking tomatoes

A daily serving of Pomodoros

Enter the Pomodoro Technique. Designed for people whose self-discipline needs a helping hand. People who are easily distracted. Using a little ticking tomato.

Perfect.

This post doesn’t aim to describe the technique in detail (you can find all you need to know about it on the Pomodoro Technique website). Suffice to say, it is a method of working in short, focused bursts and keeping on top of the task in hand. Using a little ticking tomato.

It sounded as though it might work. I felt a frisson of fear as I read about the need to ignore internal distractions (e.g. the compulsive need to check Facebook every 5 minutes); but heck, it was worth a go.

So I headed out to a shop I’d never been to in my life before and bought a shiny red kitchen timer. I was more excited about this purchase than I thought possible.

I returned home, picked a few pomodoro length project tasks, wound up the little ticking tomato and gave it a go.

In what felt like a matter of seconds later, the tomato rang. I forced myself to stop, as instructed, and take a five minute break.

Then I sat down again, wound up the timer and continued work. Rather than distracting me, the ticking of the tomato reminded (or perhaps warned) me not to check my mail, reply to a twitter mention or even start daydreaming about my army of robot monkeys (hmmm, robot monkeys…).

Two pomodoros later…

Two 25-minute pomodoros and two 5-minute breaks later, I’d achieved more than I’d thought possible. I’d spent 50 focused minutes on a task and made real progress on it. The kind of progress it would normally have taken me at least double that length of time to make.

I’d even spent a couple of minutes in breaktime checking Facebook (amazingly, nothing of ground-shaking import had happened whilst I’d been working…)

Equally amazingly, during my first break the solution to a problem I’d been wrestling with during the previous pomodoro popped into my head. I’d been following instructions not to think of the task itself during the break, but it still appeared, like a little magical tomato fairy.

You say tomato, I say ‘puts an end to time-management misery’

So, I’m sold. I’ll be chunking up my working time into pomodoros, using my GTD ‘next actions’ list to pick the day’s tasks and prioritise them. I’ll stay focused and productive and be able to look back on the day with a sense of achievement rather than a slight guilty feeling.

All thanks to a little ticking tomato…

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