A while ago, the Pomodoro Technique was pointed out to me. In the Pomodoro Technique, work periods are counted down from 25 minutes by a kitchen timer; when the bell rings – and not before, it’s time for a break. The huge long list of things to do is gone, or rather, is replaced by the activity inventory, from which a selection of tasks is taken and put on a to-do-today list. The to-do list now contains only things that are feasibly achievable in one day. At the end of the day, you record your progress and use that to improve your working practices.

The 25 minute work period is called a pomodoro, after the Italian word for tomato. What an odd name, you might be thinking. Well, the inventor of the technique, Francesco Cirillo, is Italian and he used a tomato-shaped kitchen timer.

I bought a timer at the weekend from Lakeland. It’s not a tomato but an egg (see below). Luckily Cirillo didn’t use an egg: the Ouvo Technique doesn’t quite have the same ring. Anyway, my egg is red, like a tomato, although it looks quite orange in the photo. It has a loud tick, which I can shut out, and a loud ring, which gives me a fright when it goes off.

Egg-shaped kitchen timer

I also bought a blank refill pad and a file to store my activity inventory, to do lists, records and so on. Yesterday, I started pomodoroing in earnest. I did get much more work done than I would have if I hadn’t been using the technique, although it still wasn’t perfect. But, the Pomodoro Technique Illustrated by Staffan Nöteberg tells me I should give it a couple of weeks to get used to it. I shall keep you posted.

I just need to train the cat to respect the pomodoro now.

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categories: Life and Stuff
tags: procrastination, things-to-do
last modified: 10th Aug 2011