Milena Mastrasso

All of you knows that working or studying for long periods of time is difficult, concentration grows down through hours, inversely anxiety for results increases. Francesco Cirillo create a technique to accomplish our tasks in the way we want to do those tasks in a schedule period of time. This method, called The Pomodoro Technique, is based in time-box periods of working time.

What a Pomodoro is?

A pomodoro is a kitchen timer, and we will use it to control and administrate our time. We will set the timer duration on 30 minutes, 25 minutes of work and a 5 minutes break.  When a pomodoro starts it can’t be stopped, it’s indivisible. After four pomodoros you have a longer break (15 to 30 minutes).

Maybe you are thinking about the title of my post, this means that the recess must be respected, and it based on the idea of Francesco put in his book:

This leisure time is fuel for our minds. Without it, creativity, interest, and curiosity are lost, and we run ourselves down until our energy is depleted. Without gas, the engine won’t run.

How can this technique works?

You have your timer and are ready to start working, but what you will do? You have to do a list of your planned tasks in order of priority and a section labeled “Unplanned & Urgent Activities” where any unexpected tasks that have to be dealt with should be listed as they come up.

If some interrupts the pomodoro it can’t be consider complete. When a pomodoro rings you have to do a cross next to the activity you have been working and take your 5 minutes break. This time allow you to disconnect from work and do other activities which take a little time.

When you finish a task you have to cross it out, and remember that a pomodoro is indivisible, so if you have time left use it to review all the things you have done, but if you finish it on the five first minutes of the pomodoro you can void it.

Up to this point all be right, but what happen with interruptions, sometimes appear and it can be consider a real problem, so you have to learn to manage all of them. Interruptions can be urgent or not, imagine you are in the middle of a pomodoro and realize that you are really hungry and want to eat pizza, or maybe you remember a concert and you want to call a friend to invite him.

This interruptions are different, but if you postpone them you don’t have to void your pomodoro. You take note of that and continuing working. To control the interruptions you have to do a mark on the activity, use different marks to different types of interruptions.

Francesco said:

The first objective to achieve in cutting down on interruptions is to be aware of the number and
type of internal interruptions. Observe them, accept them, and schedule them or delete them, as
the case may be.

The second objective to achieve in order to cut down on interruptions is to be aware of
the number and type of external interruptions. Negotiate them and reschedule them depending
on the real degree of urgency.

This is the first step of applying this technique, then you can set your available pomodoros and estimate your activities to do the technique more effective. You can download the book and continues improving.

How can it be related with software engineering?

Some people use this technique to do development tasks, and some mix it with agile methodologies, but some people said that it can bring some problems because individuals may tend to meet personal goals and not team goals.

I invite you to talk about your experiences using the pomodoro technique in both scenarios, personal and team work.