IceCream Wrote:Pomodorro's a great way to start, but it's better if you get to know your own limitations and strengths, and work with them...

I think the point of techniques like Pomodorro is for people (like me) who have tried and failed to work to our own limitations, i.e. people (like me) with zero self-discipline. Sometimes I would sit at the computer for hours at a time and not do anything, even if I had all the necessary materials right in front of me. Working to a timer basically panics you into action―once the clock starts ticking, you're almost compelled to start working. I'm a serial procrastinator but this technique has worked wonders for me. I just wish I'd known about it (and SRS) while I was still in school.

mafried Wrote:

wiki Wrote:The Pomodoro Technique is a method of time management, similar in principle to Timeboxing.

I'm sorry, maybe I'm just not getting something here. But how is "The Pomodoro Technique" any different than timeboxing?


In any case, why are we spending time doing free marketing for this guy? This 'technique' is just shallow and gimmicky application of trademark to common sense and current practice for no other reason than to make a quick buck. Why are we aiding this?

Screw the Pomodoro Technique. Use The Dororo Technique™ instead! It's like timeboxing, but what you're doing is, you're executing tasks within blocks of time instead, using a Dororo™ (a timer) to keep track. You can find my free advice on this technique in an earlier linked comment. Thank you for your support of The Dororo Technique™!

mafried Wrote:

wiki Wrote:The Pomodoro Technique is a method of time management, similar in principle to Timeboxing.

I'm sorry, maybe I'm just not getting something here. But how is "The Pomodoro Technique" any different than timeboxing?


In any case, why are we spending time doing free marketing for this guy? This 'technique' is just shallow and gimmicky application of trademark to common sense and current practice for no other reason than to make a quick buck. Why are we aiding this?

My bad, I suck at wording things.

EDIT: At the moment I'm not too sure on the legitimacy of this technique, as stated earlier after reading through the pdf its just timeboxing with a fancy name and a product to sell.

wildweathel Wrote:You could treat your anime as study time; that's what I do. As I understand it, though I'm not a Pomodoro master, your break is supposed to be something that disengages your brain. My Japanese isn't good enough that watching something in Japanese is "disengaging"--I'm constantly thinking about the dialogue and I might even stop to look things up or replay something I didn't catch.

Oops, I was talking about general studies for myself. Watching anime is taking a break from reading a biology textbook, or writing an essay.
If I ever do happen to be studying Japanese intensively(at least reading), I may or may not use anime as a "break". The activity itself is so different, it gives my brain a light and enjoyable distraction. I never look up stuff. Other times it can still be too much brain activity.


I should really find my little timer... whether I can study for an hour at once or not doesn't mean I do. Or rather, I don't study as many hours total as I need to.

Quote:I'm sorry, maybe I'm just not getting something here. But how is "The Pomodoro Technique" any different than timeboxing?

The main differences to traditional timeboxing, as I understand it, are:

1. Using a consistent unit of time (e.g. 25 mins)
2. Scheduling breaks (5 minutes after every pomodoro, 15-20 minutes after you complete a block of four), which are also timeboxed in order to minimize distractions and procrastination between tasks.
3. Recording each unit of work on paper to measure progress.

Quote:In any case, why are we spending time doing free marketing for this guy? This 'technique' is just shallow and gimmicky application of trademark to common sense and current practice for no other reason than to make a quick buck. Why are we aiding this?

All you need to do this is a kitchen timer and a piece of paper. The PDF is free to download and gives you more than enough information. I'm struggling to see where the rip off is. Perhaps you could enlighten me.

Anyway, it's not reinventing the wheel, but it makes a few modifications to traditional timeboxing which I and others have found helpful. As others have stated, it's mainly useful for people like me who have problems with procrastination, distractions and allocating time to tasks. It's not for everybody, but neither is any other tool or methodology advocated on these forums.

thorstenu Wrote:

mafried Wrote:In any case, why are we spending time doing free marketing for this guy? This 'technique' is just shallow and gimmicky application of trademark to common sense and current practice for no other reason than to make a quick buck. Why are we aiding this?

Its not normal timeboxing and its not common sense. But on the other side, it is not new either... just because of a stupid name and much marketing.

http://www.43folders.com/2005/10/11/proc...-hack-1025

This article is from 2005 and calls the technique a procrastination hack/dash. The times are a little different but the idea is the same... just explained without the marketing background.

EDIT: About the breaks, the idea is, that you don't have to use them. If you are going "with the flow" you just skip them and wait fro the next break.

Yes, I referred/linked to the above hack two or three times already in this 2-page thread. ^_^

There's no 'normal' timeboxing, timeboxing is just the idea of working on a task for a box of time, rather than with the goal of finishing the task in that time. Honestly, I think 'timeboxing' is common sense, it's just that when we label it 'timeboxing' it makes us understand it as a viable strategy rather than just "Umm, I'll just work on this task for a few minutes and move on... " which I think most people have done in their lives without ever hearing of the word. I know I did.

So some self-help gurus slapped this software engineering term on it, perhaps inspired by HIIT cardio gurus, and voila! ;p

bungle Wrote:

Quote:I'm sorry, maybe I'm just not getting something here. But how is "The Pomodoro Technique" any different than timeboxing?

The main differences to traditional timeboxing, as I understand it, are:

1. Using a consistent unit of time (e.g. 25 mins)
2. Scheduling breaks (5 minutes after every pomodoro, 15-20 minutes after you complete a block of four), which are also timeboxed in order to minimize distractions and procrastination between tasks.
3. Recording each unit of work on paper to measure progress.

Quote:In any case, why are we spending time doing free marketing for this guy? This 'technique' is just shallow and gimmicky application of trademark to common sense and current practice for no other reason than to make a quick buck. Why are we aiding this?

All you need to do this is a kitchen timer and a piece of paper. The PDF is free to download and gives you more than enough information. I'm struggling to see where the rip off is. Perhaps you could enlighten me.

Anyway, it's not reinventing the wheel, but it makes a few modifications to traditional timeboxing which I and others have found helpful. As others have stated, it's mainly useful for people like me who have problems with procrastination, distractions and allocating time to tasks. It's not for everybody, but neither is any other tool or methodology advocated on these forums.

Sorry if it seemed like I was giving you a hard time for posting about this, it's a decent procrastination hack using timeboxing, and thus quite useful! I'm just making fun a bit of someone coming up with a specific time hack and then trademarking it, giving it its own website for trademark/copyright guidelines and selling merchandise, hyping and marketing the technique-as-brand complete with folksy guru biography, as if there's something inherently superior to their version than any number of other variations. In fact, I think it's inferior precisely because it tries to make timeboxing rigid and specific, rather than just tossing this particular hack out there as a useful variation.

nest0r Wrote:Yes, I referred/linked to the above hack two or three times already in this 2-page thread. ^_^

Sorry, I somehow missed it. I deleted my redundant post.

nest0r Wrote:There's no 'normal' timeboxing, timeboxing is just the idea of working on a task for a box of time, rather than with the goal of finishing the task in that time. Honestly, I think 'timeboxing' is common sense, it's just that when we label it 'timeboxing' it makes us understand it as a viable strategy rather than just "Umm, I'll just work on this task for a few minutes and move on... " which I think most people have done in their lives without ever hearing of the word. I know I did.

Yeah, you are right. I meant with 'normal' timeboxing more the general, abstract term/technique (if we call it that way or not) while the technique we talk about in this thread is some concrete and special way to use timeboxing.

thorstenu Wrote:

nest0r Wrote:Yes, I referred/linked to the above hack two or three times already in this 2-page thread. ^_^

Sorry, I somehow missed it. I deleted my redundant post.

nest0r Wrote:There's no 'normal' timeboxing, timeboxing is just the idea of working on a task for a box of time, rather than with the goal of finishing the task in that time. Honestly, I think 'timeboxing' is common sense, it's just that when we label it 'timeboxing' it makes us understand it as a viable strategy rather than just "Umm, I'll just work on this task for a few minutes and move on... " which I think most people have done in their lives without ever hearing of the word. I know I did.

Yeah, you are right. I meant with 'normal' timeboxing more the general, abstract term/technique (if we call it that way or not) while the technique we talk about in this thread is some concrete and special way to use timeboxing.

Geez, no need to delete it! Now I feel like a bully. ;p

It makes me wonder, though, do people really need all the commercial stuff in order to learn about and generate good ideas? Does getting on Lifehacker, et al., having readers on Lifehacker check out links to your ideas, depend on branding and currency? Do the current methods used reflect evolution or stagnation? Guess that's a larger argument....

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I like the idea of using the kitchen timer. I'm even tempted to buy one.. the author is right that clicking buttons on a software app doesn't involve you as much as physically starting a timer. I could use Stickies, or even Notepad to note down the tasks but there's nothing like a pencil and a small piece of paper to draw some square checkboxes and check them off.

My initial reaction was similar to that of nestOr but what do we gain by being cynical about it? To their credits the book is a free download. Some of my colleagues went to a Java developer conference where they talked about it! I think people like simple ideas. It's not so much about the technique often it's about how you can get it down to the majority of people. The kitchen timer is a good idea.

For me the hardest part with those methods is to actually remember to use them! >_<

mafried Wrote:I'm sorry, maybe I'm just not getting something here. But how is "The Pomodoro Technique" any different than timeboxing?

The same could be said of many self help books. Like 99% of self help litterature would be pointless because they are all based on the same principles.

But the reason they keep coming over and over is that people just need to be reminded. And the language is often a barrier. It is so hard to communicate simple ideas. So maybe Pomodorro will do for people what timeboxing did to others. Just like countless self help books today do for people what "Think and Grow Rich" did for others 50 years before that. Some people want to hear something in new-agey talk, others want to hear the same thing in "scientific" tallk. Some want to hear it from the doctor. Some want to hear it from the guru. And they're all trying to understand the same thing. If you don't like tomatoes you won't like Pomodorro (just teasing)

Of course it's easy for me sounding like the wise man.. my first reaction was negative as well.. but I honestly believe it has its purpose.

In many ways I'm on the fence about it too, in that I think it's a natural process that people are going to depend on these crutches even when there's nothing wrong with their legs, as it were, but they will do so less and less as culture evolves. But that's also why I think being critical about it (I prefer that to 'cynical') is necessary as well, to ensure that people understand that they don't need to rely on gurus and buzzwords telling them 'this is the best way to catch fish' when they can have more open dialogues that get at the root and discuss 'how to catch fish', allowing them to learn to judge the merits themselves. (A good example of this 'fish' metaphor difference I'm referring to is here: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=...5248548861# - Do you see the difference between what Rushkoff and Pinchbeck are doing here?)

Another similarity is the whole Reznor/Radiohead thing... all of a sudden it's a big deal that artists are willing to give away their music online, but have optional donation methods? Why? Independent artists have been struggling to get noticed that way for years, but the mindset that says 'if it's free, it can't be good' generates the 'ohhh, a mainstream artist I've been spoonfed is giving away their music for free, that's genius!' mindset. I'm not being cynical in that I think popular = worse, just that all the merits should be judged on their own, without all the commercial packaging, however Reznor-like the distribution might be (that's the true cynicism, in my mind, finding ways to subvert free, meritocratic culture to create an image and profit before merit culture).

In other words, I think eventually we'll come to understand that people can generate and distribute ideas using current media, and it can be *good*, rigorous stuff, even with 'image' contributing to reputation systems, without having to trademark it and wrap it up in traditional marketing.

Ha, look at me, spinning off another thread into a self-important lecturing tangent. Ah well.

The theory is not revoltionary - i think we all know that.

It really is a simple time management method/system and why the author feels the need to write a whole book about is a little mystifying for me. It can basically be summarised on a page.

I think sometimes we are so busy analysing and trying to quantify what we do that we actually neglect the most important part - THE DOING.

Anyway as i posted previously this method works for me. I'll keep using it until the next great idea comes along. I use a simple vista clock with an annoyingly loud alarm. If I somehow find myself distracted i give myself a whack on the head, tighten the thigh screws and start the timer again

nest0r Wrote:Another similarity is the whole Reznor/Radiohead thing... all of a sudden it's a big deal that artists are willing to give away their music online, but have optional donation methods? Why? Independent artists have been struggling to get noticed that way for years, but the mindset that says 'if it's free, it can't be good' generates the 'ohhh, a mainstream artist I've been spoonfed is giving away their music for free, that's genius!' mindset. I'm not being cynical in that I think popular = worse, just that all the merits should be judged on their own, without all the commercial packaging, however Reznor-like the distribution might be (that's the true cynicism, in my mind, finding ways to subvert free, meritocratic culture to create an image and profit before merit culture).

Let's be honest here: most indie music is bad, in the sense that it isn't great, and most people don't have time for music that isn't great. That's why whenever a good band releases an album, people complain that 2/3rds of it is shit. Every site full of indie music I've ever sampled has never held my interest for more than a day or two-- it has nothing to do with the price and everything to do with the fact that indie music, like anything else, is usually far from outstanding. On the contrary, Radiohead's latest CD was great-- one of their best, even, while Resnor's latest stuff was OK. I'm glad I didn't pay for the Slip, as I stopped listening to it pretty soon after I downloaded it, but anyway, yeah. If something has merit (Firefox, etc.) it will become popular. If it doesn't (99% of indie music) then it won't. Simple economics.

FutureBlues Wrote:Let's be honest here: most indie music is bad, in the sense that it isn't great, and most people don't have time for music that isn't great. That's why whenever a good band releases an album, people complain that 2/3rds of it is shit. Every site full of indie music I've ever sampled has never held my interest for more than a day or two-- it has nothing to do with the price and everything to do with the fact that indie music, like anything else, is usually far from outstanding. On the contrary, Radiohead's latest CD was great-- one of their best, even, while Resnor's latest stuff was OK. I'm glad I didn't pay for the Slip, as I stopped listening to it pretty soon after I downloaded it, but anyway, yeah. If something has merit (Firefox, etc.) it will become popular. If it doesn't (99% of indie music) then it won't. Simple economics.

You speak madness.

ファブリス Wrote:I like the idea of using the kitchen timer. I'm even tempted to buy one.. .

And you could even make tea with it! ;-)

I've used timeboxing over the last two days and so far it works great. Cleaned my home, organized some documents, worked on my thesis, did my review. Another side-effect of time-boxing is probably that you are more conscious about what you are doing and for how long.

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Wow, this timer app is very nice for timeboxing:

DinnerTimer (Lite)
http://www.dinnertimer.com/

It makes a tray bar bubble notification at the last minute mark (configurable), you can change the sounds for start, end, .. you have to manually stop it, and it shows you the "overtime". Some built in sounds are just like kitchen timer sound. The default "Sci Fi" sound when you start the timer is horrible though, thankfully there's many other builtin options. By default the windows is also half transparent, which you can easily revert to opaque. If that's not enough you can configure it to run a program when the timer ends!

Codexus Wrote:Come on, seriously, 25 min is not enough. For most activities it takes longer to even get started. Once you finally are "in the zone" you should use that concentration as much as possible. Not start taking breaks right away.

Heh, that's also what I've found. I've tried timeboxing a few times since it sounds like a good idea, but the timer going off just annoys and distracts me just as I'm getting 'in the zone'. Longer periods seem to work better for me, at least two hours at a time, though mainly for things like reps I'd prefer to just do some and take a break whenever I feel like it.

I'm ultra minimal and so far stuff like Timeleft, etc. is much too bloated for my delicate sensibilities. In other words, if it takes more than .4 seconds to open, set, and execute, it's too bloated. Anything like this add-on (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/7472) but standalone out there? Literally, I'd like to just take that little area of Firefox when it's installed and drag it to the side, closing Firefox but leaving Tea Timer on. Sadly, my delusions only take me so far.

Edit: lol, found this immediately after posting: http://sourceforge.net/projects/tea-timer/

I think it's almost the same program, too. Takes .5 seconds instead, though.

When I first got started on RTK, I got a book called YOUR MEMORY, which has been around for a while-not a salesy book, just facts about memory techs and research.

Anyways, he says 20 mins with a small break is the ideal way to study. Hit anki for 20 mins, get up go to the bathroom, take a quick peak at another website, whatever for a couple mins, then do another 20 mins.


I do this and while there are of course days where 20 mins seem hard and 1 hour seems easy, the 20 min rule of thumb seems to work best for me.

There are similar ideas in the book "The Now Habit" by Neil Fiore. I think his unschedule technique works quite well. Basically the idea is that if you give up all the fun stuff in life it will sap your motivation. So schedule the fun stuff first. Then schedule all the appointments, meetings, etc that you have to go to. Finally in the time that is left, work in blocks of 30 minutes followed by a period of relaxation. Definitely a book worth reading.

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Pomodoro app for Mac OS, uses Growl for notifications.

I'm with ruiner. This "pomodoro technique" is just straight up time boxing. Set boxes of time (25 minutes it just generic, it depends on task and person), a break after each box. That isn't "pomodoro", it's just timeboxing. Nothing special about it. So yeah, it explicitly tells you a time (bad idea since it depends) and tells you to keep check on a paper (who in their right mind would timebox without checking time?). Nothing new here, just someone jumping on the bandwagon trying to make money of other peoples ideas.

The OSX pomodoro app is really nice, whether you think the pomodoro technique is good or not. You can just set the app to work with whatever times you want and it keeps a record of your day's studying. Great if you want to chart studying over time to analyse your learning techniques.

I´m using an alternative,5 x ( 10 minutes + 2 minute break)