My Biggest Learning After 6 Months With the Pomodoro Technique

Being a bit of a productivity nerd (especially if I could use reading about and setting up a new technique as a procrastination device) I’d read many articles on the Pomodoro Technique over the years. There was no shortage of hype or of personal success stories. I was skeptical though: “It’s just a timer, how powerful can it be? And why would any software developer want to interrupt themselves every 25 minutes, that’s just when you might be getting into the flow.” I gave it a go once, but set the intervals to 90 minutes so that I would actually have a chance to get things done. It wasn’t successful.

Then just under a year ago I reset my career focus. Suddenly my to-do list was overflowing and I realised I needed to get much better at getting things done. I simply didn’t have the luxury of taking time to ease into the day and get in the zone. And if I didn’t set firm boundaries my day would fill up with meetings and discussions and I would never get to my coding work at all.

I decided to give the Pomodoro technique another go.

Fast-forward a few months and I can’t imagine a day that isn’t broken down into intervals. My colleagues know that if my headphones are on I’m in the middle of a pomo and should only be interrupted in an emergency. My timer is visible to everybody so they know how long they need to wait. Everything that has been claimed about the technique has turned out to be true:

• I’m getting more done in less time.
• If I do work long hours, the regular breaks imposed by technique keep me alert for longer.
• If I am struggling to focus in a pomodoro I can afford myself the luxury of taking a longer break or doing something that requires less concentration because I am confident that I will be able to focus on the problem later.
• I find that I don’t lose hours any more. I sometimes would look back on the day and wonder what I did before lunch and what did I have to show for it. Now I know that I did x pomodoros on task a and y pomodoros on task b.

But there is one thing the Pomodoro Technique has taught me above all else. When I adopted the technique again I decided to try the default interval length of 25 minutes for a while. I’ve learnt that 25 minutes is actually plenty of time to get things done now that I have trained myself to switch my focus on and off. That is incredibly powerful. Have half an hour between meetings? Great, I can write a blog post draft, or get a function or two written and tested. So much time that I previously allowed myself to waste can now be put to good use. And similarly, if I can just find 25 minutes each day to dedicate to something, over a week or a month or a year that adds up to something truly significant. If you’ve been wondering if you should try the Pomodoro Technique I strongly encourage you to give it a go.