industriousone

I think I'll start with the Pomodoro Technique, a productivity enhancing way to structure the work-a-day life. It's effective, I use it every day, it has a cool name, and is as stupid simple a process as you'll ever find: work your ass off for 25 minutes, then chill for five. Repeat.

There, done.

Maybe the folks who thought up the idea take it a bit more seriously, but really that's all you need to know to use it. So what’s so great about taking a break every 25 minutes (why ruin your flow)?

Work your ass off for 25 minutes means pick a goal—one goal—and go after it. No checking your email, no surfing the web, no getting a drink or chatting up your cute co-worker, and no context switching. One goal, 25 minutes. In practice this turns out to be an ideal duration, long enough to do real work, but not so long as to become tedious. And since most office scheduling happens in half-hour increments it slots in nicely between meetings.

Always running a timer while working also protects against the inevitable distraction, that Homer moment when something shiny catches your eye and lures you off into the wilderness. Like earlier this morning when I went researching an unfamiliar API call and ended up on Cafe Press shopping for a new coffee mug. That kind of thing. In 25 minutes the timer goes off and brings you back to reality. Chill for five, refocus, and get back to it.

If I find myself getting burned out, or if I'm having trouble switching gears, I'll take 25 minutes just to check email and surf the web. The timer gives me a chance to recharge without worrying about blowing my entire afternoon. The official instructions would say take a longer break every two hours, but I don't stick to that myself.

Devoted followers of David Allen's GTD system (I count myself among you) can use these cycles as artificial contexts, breaking out of the dreaded @computer conundrum. Example: I set aside one 25 minute block each day for writing, and use an @writing context to plan my work (I also make heavy use of scaffolds, which I'll talk about in another article).

All of that said, the real benefit comes from the five minutes breaks.

First of all, if the breaks ruin your flow you're not doing it right. You're supposed to clear your head and chill, not look for something else to do. If you're the type that feels the need to fill every minute this might take some getting used to. Once you do, maintaining flow across the breaks is not a problem.

If you've been working on a tough problem and can't seem to find an answer, the five minute break is when it will come, straight out of the blue. Just like that time when you couldn't remember the name of that song—you know the one—until you were driving home, when all of sudden it just popped into your mind. Getting away from the work and shutting down the noise gives your subconscious (or whatever source you ascribe to insight) a chance to chime in.

In my case, than insight often comes in the form of perspective, of seeing the forest for the trees. If I'm stuck on a problem, I'll realize I’m going about it the wrong way, or sometimes that it's a problem that doesn't need to be solved at all. If I didn't step back every so often I wouldn't get that perspective.

For the positive visualizations crowd (I count myself among you, too) the break is a chance to remember the goal, and refocus on the "done" state. It's an exercise I find tremendously useful when I start getting frustrated or annoyed. Otherwise I have a tendency to crank down even harder, which always leads to inferior results.

But wait there's more! The breaks are just plain healthy. Every 25 minutes I stand up and move around. I stretch. I get my eyes off the screen. I get a drink of water, which keeps my energy level up, which keeps me working more efficiently, longer.

Okay, that's all. No more.

In case you're wondering, I use TinyAlarm myself. I've also used Minuteur in the past, but any countdown timer will do. The folks who came up with the process used a tomato-shaped kitchen timer (pomodoro is Italian for tomato).

While it isn't necessary, I do track the number of cycles I complete for each of my major work areas each day (as a point of reference, I manage about 10 per day, 13 if I'm really on it). I like to know where I'm spending my time.

Give it a try and see what you think. Maybe check out the official website and their PDF book with all the bells and whistles. Let me know how it works out.

Update: I intended to give props to whoever had turned me on to this process but couldn't for the life of me remember who it was. I finally figured it out: I got it from Agile Estimating and Planning by Mike Cohn (a really good book if you're into that kind of thing). In Chapter 16 there's a sidebar entitled Getting More Time on Your Project.

Best Practices, One and Two

A commenter (the only one so far) asked about best practices. I can think of two off the top of my head; you can get more from the official website:

Have a goal
Before you start your 25 minute block have an idea of what you plan to achieve during that time. If you can, write it down in plain sight—I keep a piece of scrap paper on my desk for just that purpose. Having a goal will help you stay focused, and there's a nice little endorphin rush when you reach it before the timer goes off.

Five means five
I've found that my productivity improves dramatically if I take full five minute breaks. It used to be that by the time I stretched my legs, used the bathroom, got a drink, and got back to my desk the five minutes would be up, and I would be right back into it without ever really clearing my head. Now I do all that, get back to my desk, and then set the timer, so I get five full minutes of down time between sessions.

How about you? Do you do anything differently? Any best practices?