The Pomodoro Technique

Why does it feel like we are never going to catch up? We are always chasing something: deadlines, meetings, brainstorming sessions, etc. It almost feels like there aren’t enough hours in the day to do everything you might have set your mind to. Let me tell you, you are not alone in this. You’ve probably already heard the saying “time is money”. It is an old saying that essentially just means that laziness will cost you, however, I think that 18th century Americans perceived work differently from today. Meaning they didn’t have to deal with three deadlines while juggling a new product pitch and finding time to go to that new tapas place with their friends that they had not seen in a month.

So what to do? Do you just accept the fact that there will never be enough time? Maybe that doesn’t have to be the case. Oh, btw, do you like tomatoes?

Everyone has their fair share of experience running against time.

Some of us choose to tackle it head-on, others choose to ignore it wholeheartedly and pretend it’s not there.

I never knew which group suited me more, so when someone from the office started talking about tomatoes, I had no choice but to join in on the conversation. After all, I thought we were going to discuss the next office pizza party.

But unfortunately, that was not the case. A co-worker of ours was raving about this new working technique that’s supposed to be life-changing. They tried it over the weekend and simply loved it.

THE POMODORO

It is called the Pomodoro Technique, created by Francesco Cirillo. It is an interval-based working technique inspired by his little kitchen timer. The whole appeal of the technique is to make bigger tasks seem smaller and it makes us look at and perceive time differently. Simply put, it makes you get s*it done.

It works on this simple principle:

What this does is that it breaks down bigger tasks, for example, writing a long-form blog post, into smaller more manageable tasks - write the intro, write a paragraph, etc.

We decided to test it out on our marketing team, and see if it would improve their work in any way. Recently we have decided to come back to our office full time, and since we work in a very open plan office space it’s sometimes hard to disconnect from everything around you and fully focus on the task in front of you. That’s why we have decided to conduct this little experiment. We told our marketing team to use this technique for a week.

Here are some of the benefits they reported:

Productivity

The team reported that even though they had a bit of a hard time adjusting to a new working technique out of the blue, they have noticed a big rush in their productivity levels. However, we must mention that when working, they used noise-canceling headphones, which might have helped.

Decreased anxiety

At DeltaHub there’s always something cooking. Staying on the top of the wrist rest ergonomics game is not a one-(wo)man job so we are always on the grind. Knowing you’re not going to be able to catch all the deadlines can be super stressful, however, our team said that working only 25 minutes at a time helps them see their tasks as much smaller.

Enhanced focus and concentration

We are not entirely sure if this benefit is a result of the technique or the noise-canceling headphones, so we’re going to say it was the result of both of them working in perfect harmony.

Boosted motivation and determination

The team also confirmed the idea that separating one bigger task into smaller ones helps with not seeing the problem at hand as too difficult which results in an increase in motivation and determination.

Is it bad to use your own team members as test subjects? Probably.

After seeing how well it worked on our marketing team, in our office, we are all about that Pomodoro life. Even the ones who take tomatoes out of their burgers (weirdos, I know). That’s why we have decided to develop a product that is basically the Pomodoro Technique in your pocket. It does all the thinking and time management for you, you just have to do the work part. It is currently in beta testing be ready for some updates pretty soon. 

Our team members are very hard to please, so if they liked it, you’re going to love it for sure...when we actually launch it that is.

Coming soon 👀

Sources:

Cirillo, F., 2006. The Pomodoro Technique. 1st ed. Available at: https://www.bookdepository.com/Pomodoro-Technique-Francesco-Cirillo/9781524760700

Or you can read more at https://todoist.com/productivity-methods/pomodoro-technique