Why Pomodoro?
Pomodoro is a proven method of time boxing. I’ve already written about it here, but this time I am going to dig in deeper. This way I can systematically approach time estimation of my tasks, and this will help my planning process.
Also by my previous testing, disengaging from a task for 5 minutes by walking, catching up quickly on your phone with the social media, or simply going to the toilet or making a coffee is a great way to regain focus. Why Pomodoro? Because it works.
My previous Pomodoro experience
I’ve had great results with it in the past, but I could never make my habit of using it stick. It’s time to change that. Previously I’ve been faced with 25 minutes focus period, and for my own needs, I felt as this is too much. I’ve been playing with 15 minutes period as well, but that time frame was too short…
So I’ve made an adjustment, 20 minutes Pomodoros
I’ve been testing this technique yesterday while playing World Of Warcraft and writing a Fantastic article, and it was proven that it’s my desired time frame for full engagement. Perhaps I will slowly increase the duration to reach 30 minutes, but for the time being, I have to build a muscle of practicing Pomodoro’s when I truly want to work. Or have fun as well…
An app that I will use to measure results weekly
Pomodorable is unfinished status bar timer for OS X. It has OmniFocus, Reminders and Things integration. These integrations don’t work so well, at least not for OmniFocus, but the app itself is more or less functional. There are still features lacking, but I figured that I can save my completed tasks, and review them at the end of the week.
The shortest timer on this app is 20 minutes. If it was shorter, maybe I would be messing around with 15 minutes one, but I think from this point now, that it’s too short a period of time. But if you’re suffering from a strong case of ADHD, starting with 15, maybe even 10 minutes doesn’t sound like that bad of an idea.
Planning and achieving
As a part of my daily / weekly planning, I will decide how many Pomodoro’s I will spend during the day, and doing what activities. The goal is to spend a certain amount of time by doing the planned Pomodoro’s. It will include a lot of my daily habits as well.
This way I will treat time as a “currency” and I will be able easily to decide how much time I will “spend”, literally. And I will also count time in Pomodoro’s. Going to calculate it’s value, and determine what I am doing, throughout the day. My belief right now is that this is going to clarify my focus and make me more engaged in what I am doing.
The fact that I am talking about this, holds me accountable to you, to deliver the results of the Pomodoro experiment by this Sunday at 17:00.
Daily Habit
My basic premise was to make ideal “4-hour workdays”, where I will spend 4 hours of time actively working on my own projects. While I can’t currently do that, as I have a day job. I will aspire to measure some of my day job activities as a Pomodoro and do at least half of the other ones for my own projects.
Observations as I write this
This article has been rushed with Pomodoro timer of 20 minutes. I was looking at the time, and I was rushing myself to finish it before the timer ends. This provided positive pressure, that rushed me through the very start of this experiment. I am happy that I am starting this experiment on the right foot. This is my fourth Pomodoro today, and it fueled me with the energy and focus required to make it happen.
