This is a blog post about combination of pomodoro technique with simple todo list and result commitment that shapes a way of managing time into micro scrum.
Pomodoro
When I realize that I’m losing focus on work I often switch to pomodoro technique. In case you don’t know, pomodoro technique is basically working on something during 25 minutes completely focused and avoiding any of external distractions. At your disposal there are plenty of pomodoro timers available. I like the most simplest ones – those that don’t distract on their own. At the moment I’m using one that just shows time, and except of start/stop has task recording. That’s it. I put it somewhere at the top of screen in the corner.

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Micro Agile
I also track my tasks in notepad. Yes, in notepad. Simple TXT file does almost all I need. It is very simple and having only few groups and bit of formatting you can quickly work with it. When using it together with pomodoro technique I started to break tasks to smaller ones, so that they can be completed in 25 minutes. I decided to take one step further by making sure that I commit my code before this 25 minutes elapse (or +5 min penalty). This promise of committing your code is just awesome. Being limited in time forces you to come up with anything but to finish your task. You can even come up with workarounds. Whatever it is you always get a solution! For software engineers challenges are common and problems often seem unresolvable. But “before you quit, first try”. Break some task or project into approx. 25 min chunks and be committed to solve them within time limit. Imagine that in the end of 25 min you have to show your work to your boss/user/manager/god/whoever you admire. You should have feeling that if you are not done you have nothing to show.
I realized that this is basically agile. Agile or scrum in particular is all about iterations and delivery. Isn’t it? So by organizing your work in such a way you can be very productive and focused.

Here is how top of my working tasks list looked like in the end of a day:
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I’ve got nice count of 10 commit items awaiting to be pushed to the server.
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Time bought and fulfilment of work being done

Have you noticed number 10? Why 10? And what should it mean?

One of my personal problems is spending too much time at work. Also very often I don’t feel like I did much during the day. Sometimes because there were too many distractions, sometimes there was tough task, sometimes day was just filled with so many things that you don’t even know what you worked on. When I come home after such day I’m exhausted and even depressed because there is no time for other things.
When I started using this micro-scrum I didn’t have number 10, but I quickly realized that even if I do only 4-5 pomodoros such days are frequently more productive than other days.
I’ve been thinking about this and though that all this approach can be taken even one more step further. A motivational step. It often happens to people that they have plenty of work and it doesn’t give them free time. What if you could limit number of pomodoros you do per day and once you done with that number you are done for the day!
I came up with number 10. In pure time it is (25min + 5min break)X10=5hrs. Would you say that it is too little for 8hrs day? Well, no. It is hard to fit these 5 pure hours in 8 hours. There are plenty of things that come up, so planning for more 25-min tasks would be dangerous. Other option could be to count all meetings/collaboration/e-mailing/etc in pomodoros and add them to your count. In such case 15 should be largest number you can think about completing in a day.

10 a day is my limit at the moment!
What if something new pops up?
There is one special rule: You can always interrupt to add task to your list. Apparently when you work on task some items pop-up, if you address everything at that moment you won’t be able to complete your main pomodoro. Instead what you can always do is to switch screen type task and again switch to your work.
What if new big stuff comes up on your way?

What if you need to work on a big task? At first I tried to split such tasks on small tasks of 25 minutes, so I would get list of like 30 or more tasks. It is manageable to do this, but unfortunately after you are done with 5-10 items you realize that rest of items are no longer valid. Other way of doing it would be to perform 1 or 2 starting pomodoros. This way you get rough idea about what obstacles there could be. Then you break task into number of items enough to occupy you for the day. In the end of a day you already will be able to break everything into small chunks. But don’t hurry to break down everything. Next morning just break into tasks enough to fulfil your day.

How many personal pomodoros there should be?

I’ve been trying hard to spread this technique on my personal activities. First I wanted to work on personal activities exclusively when at home, but this didn’t work well. I’m having hard time to actually work on anything at home.
I then started to squeeze some of my personal activities in between of working items. In sense that after each 3 or 4 pomodoros I work on one of personal.

How to stick to this technique?

I don’t know. What I’ve described above worked quite well for me for few weeks and could work good now if I continue using it. But for some reason I unnoticeably manage to slowly return to usual way of working on stuff, which is not bad as long as you can keep yourself focused.
Because of recent events in Ukraine I’m massively distracted for the news and this technique helped me to at least accomplish some work.
To summarize
  • Break your tasks into 25 minutes activities
  • If it is big task break only for the day
  • Reorganize your tasks accordingly (best done in the morning)
  • At any point of time you can add items to your list
  • Never distract for anything else
  • Completion is your main goal and to make it certain set some done barrier, like having code commit in the end
  • Buy time by limiting number of pomodoros you have for the day
  • Squeeze your personal pomodoros or leave them for the end of a day
  • Always complete min number of pomodoros per day
  • Force yourself to use this technique when you are distracted from work

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