pomodoro time management

• Alleviate anxiety linked to becoming


• Enhance focus and concentration by cutting down on interruptions


• Increase awareness of your decisions


• Boost motivation and keep it constant


• Bolster the determination to achieve your goals


• Refine the estimation process, both in qualitative and quantitative terms


• Improve your work or study process


• Strengthen your determination to keep on applying yourself in the face of complex situations

Impassive clock! Terrifying, sinister god,
Whose finger threatens us and says: "Remember!
The quivering Sorrows will soon be shot
Into your fearful heart, as into a target;

Nebulous pleasure will flee toward the horizon
Like an actress who disappears into the wings;
Every instant devours a piece of the pleasure
Granted to every man for his entire season.

Three thousand six hundred times an hour, Second
Whispers: Remember! - Immediately
With his insect voice, Now says: I am the Past
And I have sucked out your life with my filthy trunk!

Remember! Souviens-toi, spendthrift! Esto memor!
(My metal throat can speak all languages.)
Minutes, blithesome mortal, are bits of ore
That you must not release without extracting the gold!

Remember, Time is a greedy player
Who wins without cheating, every round! It's the law.
The daylight wanes; the night deepens; remember!
The abyss thirsts always; the water-clock runs low.

Soon will sound the hour when divine Chance,
When august Virtue, your still virgin wife,
When even Repentance (the very last of inns!),
When all will say: Die, old coward! it is too late!"

Translated from the original by William Aggeler

• Pomodoros are always 25 minutes ( this rule is inviolate)


• Any Pomodoro interrupted for any reason is considered null and void, you can not count it on your activity sheet.


• When a Pomodoro is completed early go back and review your work till the allotted amount of time had been exhausted and the timer rings.


• When you find an activity takes less time than five minutes & does not require a review don't count the Pomodoro on your sheet.


• Trust the timers ring and stop all work immediately even if you could finish it in just two minutes.


• The five-minute break is meant as a disconnect from work, get up and walk around maybe get some water or stretch, allow you mind to rest.


• When estimating the number of Pomodoros a task will take is more than five to seven try thinking of how you can break the task into smaller segments such as research, outline, first draft, final draft, etc.


• It is ok to clump a number of small tasks into one Pomodoro.


• The purpose of working without interruption for the 25 minutes is to train yourself to stay focused on the work.


• When four Pomodoros are finished and you take the scheduled longer break it's ok to do things like take a long walk or catch up with email and return phone calls etc.

(1) Coined by Henri Bergson in the book Creative Evolution

(2) test drawn from The Pomodoro Technique page 10 - " The Context"