Response to Ruska

A typical week is packed with meetings, but I’ve been using the Pomodoro technique to break up the day and have a better sense of what I’m going to get done in a day.  The core of Pomodoro is 25 minute chunks of focused work time with a mandatory 5 minute break.  That’s one Pomodoro.  For every 4 Pomodoros, you take a 15 minute break.  What’s nice about it is that I can now predict how many Pomodoros I’ll have in any given day and I also predict how many Pomodoros it’ll take to complete any given task or chunk of work.

I’ve been doing this for a few months (on top of GTD which i’ve used for many years).  The sense of accomplishment I get is great!  A good day is a day when I get all the things I thought I’d get done and thanks to chunking the day out into Pomodoros, I can easily and intuitively estimate my day.

Perhaps an extension of the Pomodoro technique towards creative time would be to substitute every 4 Pomodoros with a walk.  I think most of my creative thinking happens when I’m walking home, reflecting on all the work that I just left, so I think a mandatory 20 minute walk in the middle of the day could have a similar effect. Let’s call those Pineapples.

Another creative burst usually happens when I take a nap.  I’d love to add those to the list of fruits.  Maybe one Cherry nap (20 minutes) for every 8 Pomodoros would do the trick.  I’d be happy to test this theory out.

Pomodoro Pineapple Cherry.  Sounds like a nice technique to me.  There are plenty of Pomodoro apps out there, but perhaps the best is a simple timer and paper.  The child-like sense of accomplishment I get from scribbling in a vaguely tomato looking thing into my sketchbook is hard to beat with any app.  Can’t wait to start drawing kiwis and cherries!