Pomodoro Technique – Actually Applicable Time Management Method

Over two million people worldwide use the Pomodoro Technique to manage their time better, feel less overwhelmed, and actually get work done. If that number of people trust it, then it must be a method worth trying out.

There are dozens of time management techniques you can try, but not all will help you minimize distractions, and give you insights into how much time you are spending on all your tasks. The Pomodoro Technique will do both those things, and give your day an efficient structure that promotes optimal performance.

In this article, we explain the theory behind this simple method and give you a step-by-step guide to apply, and customize it to your individual needs. A pomodoro here, a pomodoro there, and before you know it, your task will be done!

What Is The Pomodoro Technique?

The Pomodoro Technique is a time management technique and method that gives you short bursts of focus (25 minutes), and small breaks (5 minutes) in between, so you can finish a challenging task one bit at a time.

It involves:

• Choosing a task or tasks you want to Pomodoro
• Grouping small tasks into one pomodoro or dividing large tasks into many pomodoros
• Setting a timer for 25 minutes
• Working on your task without distractions
• When the buzzer goes off, taking the much-deserved 5-minute break
• Continuing to chip away at your pomodoros until the task is finished

But where did this technique come from, and what does it have to do with pomodoros (tomatoes)?

It was invented way back in the 80’s by Francesco Cirillo, a university student who was struggling to manage his overwhelming study schedule. Feeling constant burnout, and difficulty focusing, Cirillo thought if he could stick with a task even for a short period, it would lead to progress. So he set himself a challenge: to focus for just 10 minutes using a tomato-shaped kitchen timer. And that’s how the Pomodoro Technique was born.

Since then, it’s become one of the most widely used time management and productivity methods. You’ll find a good number of time-tracking tools on the market now have a Pomodoro timer that lets users track their pomodoros. That says enough about the technique’s popularity and effectiveness. It also confirms this is a theory that works for people.

4 Steps To Apply The Pomodoro Technique

There are four simple steps to the Pomodoro Technique, but for it to work, you need to:

1. Commit to your task (no switching tasks, no taking calls)
2. Be disciplined and respect the process (your timer is your keeper)

So before you start, ask yourself: Am I prepared to commit fully and follow the rules without bending them?

Now when we say commit and be disciplined, this doesn’t mean you can’t customize the method to your needs slightly. However, there are some things in the method that should remain fixed.

As we go through each step, we’ll give you a couple of different examples and tips on how you might modify the rules without losing productivity.

1. Choose A Task To Pomodoro

Step one is to choose the task or tasks you want to pomodoro. This can be any big or small task in your to-do list. It might be:

• Responding to emails
• Making calls
• Reviewing and approving documents
• Writing articles and reports
• Creating strategy documents

It can even be a meeting that you don’t want to drag out (check out our Pomodoro meeting tip below!)

One thing you should keep in mind is once you choose a task, you need to stick to it. You can’t switch tasks midway through a pomodoro. This will defeat the purpose of the method, and minimize your productivity.

Now you might not want to use the Pomodoro method for all your work tasks, but for the ones you do, in ActiveCollab, you can create and set a Pomodoro label like the one shown in the example below in your to-do list. That way, when you get to the next step, it will be easier to see which tasks can be grouped, and which ones need to be divided into several pomodoros (or subtasks).

Tip: Have a Pomodoro meeting

To apply the Pomodoro Technique to your meetings, you can schedule a 30-minute meeting invite, include a fun tomato emoji in the title, and let everyone know the meeting has a 25-minute time cap. When everyone joins, start the timer. When it goes off, you’ll have five minutes to wrap up and get on with your day.

2. Group Or Divide Your Tasks Into Pomodoros

Step two is to analyze your tasks and group or divide them into pomodoros based on the amount of time they take to complete. All your tasks will belong to one of two categories: small (tasks to group), and large (tasks to divide).

Here are some examples of which tasks belong where:

• Small tasks – Any tasks that take 5-15 minutes to complete will be small tasks that can be grouped into one pomodoro. These are usually low-focus administrative tasks. You’ll need to make a guesstimate of how many small tasks you can fit into one 25-minute time slot to complete.
• Large tasks – Any task that takes more than 30 minutes to complete will need to be divided into multiple pomodoros. These are your big project tasks that require deep thinking and a high level of concentration. You can estimate approximately how many pomodoros you’ll need to complete the task based on experience. However, if it’s a first-time project, you might not have anything to go by so this will serve as a model for landing future estimates for similar work.

In ActiveCollab, when you create a task you can also allocate and set a time for task completion. If you take a look at the examples below, you’ll see how we’ve set 25 minutes to the Respond to 5 emails task (a grouped Pomodoro task) and divided the Blog 1 task into nine pomodoros (divided pomodoros subtasks). We’ve allocated six hours for this large task in total to include breaks.

3. Set The Timer For 25 Minutes & Work (Uninterrupted)

The third step is to sit down, start the timer, and get to work. From a practical perspective, this sounds simple and easy enough to do, and it doesn't need any further explanation. However the reality is, this is a huge ask of any person. The ability to stay disciplined the entire 25 pomodoro-minutes means managing external, and internal interruptions. But how do you do that?

Let’s take a look at each one separately:

• External distractions – With a bit of effort and changes to your work environment, you can manage and minimize most external distractions. You can set your phone on silent, mute alerts for messages and emails, and you can use noise-canceling earphones to numb out most external noise that steals your attention.
• Internal distractions – However, the more difficult distraction to manage is your mind. As humans, our minds are wired to wander off, and that’s why it can be so hard to stay focused. According to research from two Harvard psychologists, Matthew Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert, adults spend a shocking 47% of every waking hour mind wandering.

So how do we beat this natural, internal impulse? We do it by learning to manage our attention with the Notice-Shift-Rewire method (yes, another method!).

There are three things you can do to bring your mind and focus back:

1. Notice – First, you have to learn to notice when you’ve wandered off into various thoughts. So it involves being mindful and catching yourself once you slip into daydream mode.
2. Shift – When you’ve established you’ve veered off course, and off your task, try to intentionally shift your attention back. Basically, you want to bring yourself back to what’s in front of you.
3. Rewire – Finally, you want to build a habit of rewiring yourself back to reality. This is almost impossible to do completely, but with practice, you can get better at staying focused for longer periods, or at the very least, minimize the number of times you zone out in a day.

Insight: Why 25 minutes?

You might be wondering why a pomodoro work interval must be 25 minutes long. This is because it’s the perfect amount of time that doesn’t intimidate a person (because it’s not too long), yet gives you ample time to get something done (not so short you can’t produce an output). On top of that, because it’s not too long, it also creates a sense of urgency, which in most cases pushes you to be more productive and efficient.

4. Take a 5-Minute Break

The third step is to take a much-deserved, 5-minute break after every pomodoro interval. When it comes to breaks, the Pomodoro method has two rules:

1. After every 25-minute pomodoro, take a 5-minute break
2. After every fourth pomodoro, take a longer break of 15-30 minutes

One thing we need to stress here is to make sure you take breaks when the timer goes off. You may be tempted to keep working because you’ve found your flow or reached that deep work level, but this can lead to lower productivity and mental fatigue in the long run.

Insight: Customizing the Pomodoro Technique

Author and Keynote speaker Susan Shu Chang who’s used the Pomodoro method for years, talks about her experimentation with breaks and longer work increments, and the effects they’ve had on her productivity and focus.

Chang calls out three key problems with extending 25-minute work increments and not taking assigned breaks:

1. You want to maximize energy and focus, not increase the amount of time you’ve invested to produce the same output.
2. Longer focus times lead to mental fatigue which causes brain fog and lowers output/time ratio.
3. By working longer and not taking regular breaks, you are not just wasting time, you’re wasting effort, and cognitive focus which will be difficult to maintain for the rest of the day.

However, Chang also says that after years of working to the 25-minute pomodoro timer, where she built her focus stamina, she finds her ideal balance between deeper focus and downtime to be a 50-minute focus increment (one pomodoro), followed by a 10-minute break.

Pros & Cons Of The Pomodoro Technique

While the Pomodoro Technique can be used and applied by anyone to any type of task, it does come with a few limitations, as well as benefits. Let’s take a look at a few scenarios where the method can truly work its magic and a couple where it might not be a good fit.

Pros

• Make challenging tasks doable – Whether it’s the complexity, or the size of the task that’s causing an issue for you is irrelevant. Both tend to lead to a drop in motivation, which makes them hard to tackle. However, when you commit to the first 25 minutes, most people break the ice and start moving towards their goal slowly.
• Manage procrastination & perfectionism – These two go hand-in-hand. Procrastinators find it hard to start, while perfectionists find it hard to finish. When you organize your day in 25-minute chunks and give yourself a reasonable deadline, not only are you much more likely to work (and not procrastinate), but you’ll also be more efficient because you’ll be chasing completion (and not perfection).
• Identify task time estimates – Need to know how much time you are spending on which tasks? The Pomodoro Technique can help you land better estimates so you can organize your schedule to realistic timeframes, or bill clients more accurately based on actual time spent on projects. If you use a productivity and work management tool like ActiveCollab, you can centralize all your task time duration data, and create dashboards and reports on hours and resources spent on client projects, so you can make better business decisions and manage your people and resource capacity.

Cons

• Short work increments – For some people, the 25-minute time slot is simply too short. This usually happens with tasks that require deep focus, such as writing a long blog article. If you’ve tried the method and faced this problem, you can customize it to the number of minutes that work best for you. According to Harvard Health Publishing, most working people and students can focus between 10-52 minutes before their attention starts to wane off. So keep that in mind when you test out longer, or shorter pomodoro periods.
• Can feel pressured to finish – While the timer serves to dictate and control your focus and break times to achieve an optimal level of productivity, it can also increase stress in some people. Feeling pressured to finish by the time the buzzer goes off can result in work of lower quality because you’re focusing on beating the timer.

ActiveCollab & Pomodoro Technique For Time & Task Management

The Pomodoro Technique is a time management and productivity hack that promotes focus and helps you achieve optimal performance output. By dividing a task into 25-minute work segments, and 5-minute breaks, you can avoid mental strain, and fatigue experienced by long focus periods of deep work.

As a task and work management platform, ActiveCollab lets you log, and organize your tasks, set due dates, and allocate set time amounts for task completion. It can help you track the time it takes to complete a task, letting you make more accurate estimates for future task scheduling.

While it can be used by professionals across all industries, service-based, client-facing businesses that bill by the hour or project, can greatly benefit from using the Pomodoro Technique, and ActiveCollab to identify which jobs are being priced accurately. It can also help agencies with resource allocation and planning, and identify any low-return, high-effort tasks.

To find out how ActiveCollab can help you run your agency or business with more insights into productivity and profitability, sign up for our 14-day free trial and take the tool for a test drive, or book a demo with one of our people!