The Quick Way to Get Productive with the Pomodoro Technique

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Introduction to Pomodoro

What would you think if I told you that a kitchen timer is probably your best investment? I am kidding, you don’t need any money whatsoever to apply the Pomodoro Technique.

The Pomodoro technique is one of the easiest, most popular and, I dare to say, most efficient ways to get work done. It can apply to all aspects of our life, from working, to reading or scrolling efficiently through Social Media.

But let’s dive in and see what are the best ways you could use this technique and what is the science behind its efficiency.

Tl;dr (Key Points)

• The Pomodoro technique was invented in the late 80s
• You work in cycles of 25 minutes followed by a 5-minute break
• After 4 Pomodoros take a 15-30 minutes break
• You can start with less than 25 minutes
• Psychologically, the Pomodoro Technique helps us beat procrastination
• It’s easier to plan and track by using these “sprint time intervals”
• There are a lot of apps that can help you use this but you could start with a pen and paper
• The goal is to get as many intervals of uninterrupted work every day

History of the Pomodoro Technique

The Pomodoro technique was invented by software developer Francisco Cirillo, in the late 80s in order to make better use of his time. The name comes from the physical kitchen timer that he was using, which was in the shape of a Pomodoro (that’s Italian for “tomato”).

After this, he wrote a book about it (which I have not fully read, to be honest ) and has been holding workshops and training on the technique ever since. You can check his website for the next dates for these workshops if you are interested.

The process

The process is quite simple and outlined in the steps below:

1. Decide on a task that you want to work on.
2. Set a timer for 25 minutes.
3. Work on that task until the timer stops.
4. Rest for 5 minutes then set a timer for another 25 minutes.
5. After 4 pomodoros, take a longer break, 15-30 minutes.
6. Repeat the cycle.

Now, these are not things set in stone. They are more, let’s say, recommendations.

Image by Jakub Luksch from Pixabay

For example, you could start with a duration of fewer than 25 minutes. You could take a break for 10 minutes instead of 5. Try to make this process as simple as possible to begin with.

Of course, this is not something you can do in all situations. It depends on the characteristics of your work and the urgency of the interruption. I will discuss more on this in a section below.

The Pomodoro technique is especially useful when dealing with work that requires a high level of concentration. This could range from creative endeavors like writing or drawing, to work items like programming or writing a report. But it can also be used for more mundane tasks, like responding to email, calling clients, or vacuuming.

The psychology behind the Pomodoro Technique

What makes this simple technique efficient is that it is backed up by basic human psychology.

Our main goal with the Pomodoro practice is to get into “the zone”, a state of flow, in which we only do one activity at a time.

There are four elements that help the human brain in this technique:

• A short deadline
• Instant Gratification
• Parkinson’s law
• Gamification

Short Deadlines

We need deadlines to deal with procrastination. If we don’t have them we might never do some things. There is a funny and interesting video on this topic, from a Ted Talk.

One of the main reasons why we procrastinate is the fact that we perceive a task as being too complex or too long. Because we think it will take hours or even days to finish it, we just don’t feel like starting it. And one of the best things we can do in this situation is to break the giant tasks into smaller pieces.

Often, we cannot break a task into actual deliverables, that is why we have to break it into time slots. This is a far more efficient way of dealing with long tasks.

For example: let’s say you want to write a book. One goal you might set for yourself is: write a chapter every week. While this would seem like a good goal it can be quite difficult to maintain it without some proper habits. What if some chapters are longer than others? Or if you need more research for some?

What if you lack inspiration next week?

A more efficient way to tackle this objective is to associate a tactic, like writing for one hour every day. This way you can make sure you have progress. A

(You can find more on the process of setting objectives and associated tactics here.)

When we start a project or a long task, there are a lot of unknowns. Our brain, actually the “lizard” part of it, is scared. If there is no familiarity this might mean there is danger ahead. So it freezes us, and we don’t act.

Because the time interval is small it is easier to trick our brain into doing something.

Taking it one small step at a time, we can get more and more familiar with what we need to get done and we are making progress while doing it. We like quick wins.

Instant Gratification

Pomodoro helps our brain in another aspect, by providing a fast reward. We talked a bit about how our brain likes things that bring pleasure (doh), and this is actually quite harmful in the long run.

But in this case, we can use it to our advantage. 25 minutes is not a long period of time before having a break. Especially if we see the timer decreasing our brain is more eager to do the work that it should before the break comes. We might train our brain to start focusing for more than that. Like I said, if 25 minutes is too much we can start with 15. We need to choose an interval that seems comfortable so that we don’t break the Pomodoro.

Parkinson’s Law

“Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion”.

CYRIL NORTHCOTE PARKINSON

Maybe you’ve heard about this before. But what does it mean, more exactly? It means that if we have a deadline set for a task, we will make sure we finish the task close to the deadline.

Let’s say you have a deal with the publisher to write a book. And you have 12 months to do it. Chances are you will spend the first few months partying or just doing nothing, as “you still have a lot of time”. Next thing you know, you are in a hotel room in the middle of the desert, typing like crazy 3 hours before the deadline.

And this happens in our everyday lives also, a report for work that is due next week, that AC that needs to be fixed until June and so on. We end up doing these things in the last moment, or not even then.

How can you “break” Parkinson’s law? By setting closer deadlines. These need to be realistic, achievable but they should stretch you a bit. For example: if you know you have to finish the report by next week and it would take 2 days, start working on it and try to finish it in one day and a half.

We are terrible at estimating, we usually underestimate but it also happens the other way around. The Pomodoro technique is very helpful in this situation because of the short time period. You know you have only 25 minutes of deep work before the break so you have to make it count. Plan for something that you think it would take 40 minutes, or maybe longer. The results might surprise you. Even if you don’t finish the task, for sure you will make significant progress.

Gamification

Gamification is an interesting concept that is getting more and more attention in the past few years.

We like play more than work, that’s for sure. Even if we are full-grown adults, the children in us still want to function in a world in which we need to reach the next level. That is why a lot of apps are currently focused on making things look like a game, with a goal and an associated reward.

If we set a number of, let’s say, eight pomodoros for the day, every time we complete one we will feel closer to our goal, we reached the next level. In this way, we have a clear path towards our goal and a way of tracking this progress 25-minutes by 25-minutes.

This also helps when we want to stretch our goals. Let’s say we did 10 pomodoros every day in the last week. We can set a goal for 11 this week. So that our brains commit to “beat” our previous results.

Gamification is quite a complex concept and there is a lot to talk about. What I can tell you is that it works very well in establishing good habits, losing weight, quitting smoking, and many others.

Dealing with Interruptions

We now understand better why the Pomodoro Technique works for most people. I would be surprised if Cirillo thought about all these aspects when he implemented it but for sure he hit the jackpot there.

What we don’t know yet is how to properly deal with interruptions.

Because context switching takes a toll on your productivity (up to 20 minutes), Cirillo suggests that you should re-start the Pomodoro. Which means the timer goes back to 25.

Another option would be to acknowledge the interruption and jot it down on a piece of paper so that you can address it after the timer finishes. If a friend or colleague calls you or comes by your desk, let them know you will be available in a few minutes.

Actually, Cirillo proposes a framework for these interruptions:

1. Inform the other (distracting) party that you’re working on something right now.
2. Negotiate a time when you can get back to them about the distracting issue in a timely manner.
3. Schedule that follow-up immediately.
4. Call back the other party when your Pomodoro is complete and you’re ready to tackle their issue.

Photo by Nadine Shaabana on Unsplash

Communication is the key. If you are home and the distraction comes from a family member, explain that you have set time periods in which you don’t want to be disturbed unless it’s an emergency. If a colleague is a source of the distraction, explain the same thing and promise to get back as soon as possible.

You can find more about interruptions here.

Completing the activity before the timer rings

What happens when you finish your task before the timer rings?

First action you could do in this case is review and refine the work you just done. If you had to write an email or finish an article, go over the piece and see if there are any mistakes. Or if there are ways to improve.

The second action you could take is to go over your next activities and see if there is anything you can change on their priority and estimates. You could also note the fact that you finished this task earlier so you can combine it with other activities next time you plan it.

The main thing to remember is once you start the timer, it has to ring.

Variations of the Pomodoro Technique

Roosevelt Dashes

The idea of having short amounts of time dedicated to a certain task is revolutionary but not as new as we might think. In his book, Deep Work, Cal Newport (about whom we talked a bit in this article), explains how American president, Theodor Roosevelt managed to achieve everything he put his mind on.

Photo by Library of Congress on Unsplash

Theodor “Teddy” Roosevelt is considered one of the best American presidents (he is one of the four carved into Mount Rushmore). He became president at the age of 42 (the youngest to this day), managed to write 40 published books and hundreds of articles while also following his passion for sports.

We find out from Cal, after studying Edmund Morris’ biography of the president, that Roosevelt, when he was a student at Harvard, started implementing a habit that would change his life forever. Teddy, as his friends and also the American people would call him, spent only 2 hours studying every day.

He would first plan his day from 8:30 AM to 4:30 PM (time-blocking). Then, he would fit studying in his schedule whenever there was a free slot in between classes and training.

These “dashes”, as Cal Newport calls them were not equal in length, so here is a difference from the 25-minutes Pomodoro Technique. But they were small amounts of time in which Roosevelt would concentrate solely on one activity. He would sit at this desk and study for a particular class not getting up until the allotted time finished.

So, you could implement this as well, if you have some free time, maybe 15 minutes until the next meeting, put your brain to work for a specific activity and one activity only.

Natural concentration cycle

Some people say that the best way is to work for 90 minutes straight, which is a natural concentration cycle. This is also called the ultradian rhythm and you can find more about how this can boost your productivity here. In this type of working habit, you work for 90 minutes and then take a 20-minute break.

This might be too long for most people. What you could do is start with smaller intervals, like the 25-minute Pomodoro and increase this until you get to 90 minutes.

Book authors or people who need to finish academic papers that require a lot of studying and research use this cycle type. But all knowledge workers could try it.

52/17 proportion

As explained in the article about productive breaks, studies have shown that we are most efficient when working for 52 minutes and then having a 17-minute break.

We need to remember that this are averages and it doesn’t work for some. Also, we usually like to work with fixed intervals, ending in 0 or 5. So I can’t really say I recommend it like this. Maybe you can get to a 50 minutes worktime (a double Pomodoro) with 15 minutes breaks.

Energy levels and work type adaptation

One other form of dividing your work/break cycle is based on energy levels and type of work. This doesn’t really have any heuristics or proper ratios, but it’s more flexible based on your own characteristics.

For example, you could plan a longer amount of time in the morning, when your energy level is high after a good night’s rest, for working on something creative or important. You could set an hour in the morning for this kind of deep work. It could be the same after a half an hour walk in the afternoon when your energy levels are back to normal.

Then, in other time periods, maybe just after lunch or near the end of your schedule, you could work in 25-minute intervals. You could use this time to batch process e-mails or call some clients. It’s less intense work for your brain and by setting a shorter time limit you force yourself to cramp up as much work as you can in this short amount of time.

Planning and Tracking

Planning your day in Pomodoros

Ok, so we know why we need to schedule our work in shorter time intervals. Let’s say we go with the initial blocks of 25 minutes. What can we do to make sure you make the most out of this technique?

First of all, we need to think about our day in terms of Pomodoros. Each morning we take any task that we need to complete that day and we divided it into a number of time blocks needed for completion.

Of course, this will not be accurate in the beginning, as we start using the technique. So we can just use our best guess.

I recommend starting with pen and paper.

• List all your activities
• Estimate the effort they would take using Pomodoros
• Plan the tasks into your calendar.

After you estimate each activity, block time in your calendar to do these tasks. We always need to remember that it’s very hard to actually finish a task if it is not on our calendar.

If there are tasks that require less than 25 minutes, group them together in one pomodoro.

So, at the beginning of your day you could have something like this:

Sample Pen and Paper Pomodoro Planning

Remember, make sure you don’t schedule too many Pomodoros. If you just start with this, I recommend not having more than 4 per day, actually. Experts claim to get to 16 a day, but for me, that is not very reasonable unless you are in full control of your schedule.

If you have a to-do list app that you are using, there is a nice way to put the pomodoros in there thanks to the emojis. Here is an example from implementing the Pomodoro Technique in Todoist:

Todoist Sample Screen

Tracking

At the beginning of the day, you look over what you accomplished in 2 ways:

• How many pomodoros did I finish?
• How much did my tasks actually take?

If you finished fewer intervals than you planned, this probably means you got interrupted. You need to analyze where did those interruptions come from and how you can stop them. I talk more about interruptions and ways to avoid them here.

Remember that about half of the workday interruptions are self-inflicted!

Then you need to check if your initial plan was correct. Did you actually finish the sales report in one Pomodoro? If not, how many did you need? What about checking your email?

In time, you will get more accurate in predicting the amount of intervals needed for a certain task so your plans are closer to reality.

I cannot stress enough the importance of measuring your outputs. As I said many times (copying Peter Drucker):

“What gets measured, gets managed”.

Peter Drucker

Pomodoro Technique Apps and Resources

There are several apps that can help you with implementing the Pomodoro technique in your life.

As I told you above, you can start with a pen and paper and a mechanical timer or the timer on your phone. Some people like to see the timer counting down while others just keep it in the background and do the work.

If you want to get more serious about tracking your pomodoros there are several apps you could use based on your OS. Most of them have all the needed capabilities.

Marinara is the simplest way to start, especially if you work with Chrome. Marinara is an extension that you could use to keep track of your time and the number of pomodoros. You can track your daily, weekly and lifetime pomodoros with this simple extension.

You can find it here.

For Windows you could try Big Stretch Reminder or Pomodoro Counter from the Microsoft Store.

If you are on Mac OS, your best options would be “Break time” and “Eggcelent”, both found on the AppStore.

For iOS you can start with “Focus timer” or “Focus keeper” while “Pomodoro timer lite” could be an option if you are on Android.

I personally use the built-in Pomodoro timer of Toggl. I like it because it is cross-platform and I can also use it for time tracking.

Conclusions on the Pomodoro Technique

The Pomodoro technique is efficient because it brings structure to your life. Although it might seem abstract at first, in time you will get to a point in which you can plan and track your deliverables in intervals.

Its concept is used efficiently in business as well, most Software Development companies use a form of Agile methodology. In Agile, the work is divided into Sprints (between 2 and 4) where people have clear objectives and the results are measured at the end of each Sprint.

And this is what the Pomodoro interval is, a short Sprint of uninterrupted work on a certain task. Although simple in concept, quite difficult to master.

What I can tell you is that it really works. So why don’t you give it a try?

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