Sunday, February 23, 2014

OCTPW: Pomodoro!

I'm a huge fan of the Pomodoro technique as a way to manage daily tasks.  I'm a programmer, and I learned about it from another programmer, but I think any person that spends most of their time in front of computer can benefit.

Very briefly, the central tenets are:
  • Break your tasks into 25-minute chunks ("Pomodoros") at the beginning of the work period, and write them down on a piece of paper
  • Complete each task in 25 minutes, cross it off, and take a 5 minute break
  • After three tasks, take a longer (15-25 minute) break
  • Repeat until finished
This absurd simplicity is actually very effective.  It forces me to develop a strategy, execute within a time constraint, and be honest and accountable with myself when something doesn't get done on time.

As a longtime pencil-and-paper Pomodoroist, I couldn't help but wonder what a fully realized Pomodoro app might look like.  Something that keeps that same spirit of simplicity while addressing some of the annoyances of paper.

This is my first attempt at a modern Pomodoro tracker.  It's still unpolished, but works well for me.  As always, the source is freely available and I welcome any feedback or contributions.

1 comment:

maggiedelano said...

Funny, I found this post through Iron Blogger and I just made a post about the Pomodoro technique as well: http://maggiedelano.tumblr.com/post/77680260829/rescue-time-and-the-pomodoro-technique

One thing I don't mention in there, which I intend to talk about in a future post, is that I log the details of each pomodoro session as part of a beeminder goal (https://www.beeminder.com/maggied/goals/pomodoros). I'm also curious about integration as far as tracking my pomodoros more efficiently, so I'll look into your app more. One thing I'd really like that I am planning on implementing is a way to start a pomodoro in Strict Workflow (or equivalent) and then have it automatically log what you did on beeminder.