The Pomodoro technique

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The Pomodoro technique is a productivity tool based on two premises:

1. Multitasking is inherently inefficient
2. One cannot maintain consistent performance at tasks for prolonged periods of time

You work for 25 minutes straight on one task; this is one pomodoro. If you are interrupted, you deal with the interruption and start over – there are no partial pomodoros, so you have to discard the one in progress.

After a 25 minute work period, you take a 5 minute break. Really – you are not allowed to keep working. Check email, look over your task list, whatever. I find it’s a good time to get up and walk around and shift my visual attention so I’m not constantly staring at a screen.

After 4 pomodoros, you are permitted a longer (15-30 minute) break.

For an added layer of complexity you can estimate how many pomodoros each task will take, and then compare it to how many it actually takes. This is a good way to train yourself to more accurately estimate task complexity.

I like this technique for a few reasons.

• It forces me to take breaks, walk around, stretch and otherwise avoid melting into my chair for 8 hours at a time.
• It forces me to break down complex tasks into small, manageable chunks. If I can’t complete a task in a few pomodoros, it’s probably too big.
• It lets me track my productivity over time. It’s easy to say that I was constantly interrupted on Monday, but it’s easier to quantify if I can show that I only got 6 pomodoros done instead of my normal 10-12.

My problem with this technique is that it takes too long to get back into the coding mindset after a break. Some estimate it takes between 10-15 minutes to resume coding after an interruption; if you are interrupted by a break every 25 minutes, you’re not going to get much accomplished on a complicated piece of code. I sometimes find the break comes at an inopportune time, when I’m just on the verge of finishing something. I usually have to quickly dump some thoughts into the file I’m editing as to what I was doing and what my next step was.

Do you use the pomodoro technique while programming? If so, do you find the recommended 25/5 breakdown sufficient for getting work done? Do you increase it, decrease it?

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