So far today, Tonianne and I have run our entire workday using Pomodoro Daisuki. Yes, it has the usual Pomodoro functionality, but some extra benefits.

As you can see here, it comes with the fastest set up, easiest use cardwall tool I think I’ve ever seen. It enforces no WIP limits, but it does give you cards with colored “tape” to quickly set up and distinguish a variety of tasks.

Today, Tonianne and I are editing our next book about using Personal Kanban for Meetings. So we’ve already done a few Pomodoros in the book.

The nice thing here is that when you are in focused productivity mode, you don’t want to move around from application to application. With this, you can easily move the current work to done and then pull in the next task.

Pomodoros work as you would expect them. You hit the “Start” button and you get a 25 minute timer. A nice touch is that when you have break time, you can choose between a five and a fifteen minute respite.

The “Show Stats” button is compelling, but in the end it merely shows a count of the Pomodoros you’ve done so far. One can hope that it will have more features in the future.

The only drawback is that once you start a Pomodoro or a break … you can’t stop! There is no “oops” button. So it treats the Pomodoro timebox a little too religiously. But, because these types of things tend to be fixed over time – I invite you to check the comments below to see if they do, indeed fix this.

Spikes For Rapid Learning

Is there something you don’t know?

Almost everyday it seems we are faced with having to learn something new. Some of those things are trivial and easy to accomplish, while others are important and a more than a little daunting to master.

There are some easy steps to make learning less overwhelming.

On the Lean Agile Machine blog, there have been two consecutive, thought-provoking posts on Personal Kanban and productivity. One describes how to set up a Personal Kanban for research and writing production. The second describes how to set up short bursts of research and quickly evaluate the results.

SPIKE

n. A short burst of work to create a sample version of something

In agile programming, savvy developers will quickly cobble together a prototype, something merely to demonstrate the idea is feasible. Spikes make sure that assumptions about selected technologies and implementation are sound.

In short, a spike is a burst of work that makes sure that further work is warranted.

Learning is a great way to do this because there will always be things we do not know. Every field of study has nuances and developments that even ardent devotees can’t keep up with. So, when we suddenly need to bone up on say, deck waterproofing methods, we really don’t want to have to become a master carpenter.

So, you do a Spike.

You set aside 15 to 25 minutes (perhaps with your Pomodoro timer) and blast through as much research as you can. You Google, you Wikipedia, you save some links, you find some review sites. At the end of your spike, you have one of three outcomes:

1. You have learned as much as you need;
2. You have a good idea where to get information and how much longer it will take; or
3. You have learned that asking an expert is a better idea.

Now learning is easy. The spike gives you a predictable amount of time to spend to get results that tame the learning beast.

(Please do read the two posts from Lean Agile Machine.)

Photo by Shavar Ross

Pomodoro and Personal Kanban

Focus is essential to giving a task your all.  Our increasingly hectic lifestyles are however, rarely conducive to focus. How many people do you know who go to work early, stay late, and even pop by the office on weekends, just so they can “actually get some work done.”

But then people tend to go too far in the other direction. They focus for a very, very long time … they drill down … they go deep. They overfocus.

Q: Ever wonder why you get great ideas in the shower?

A: Because you aren’t doing anything.

So, Pomodoro says, focus and work for 25 minutes, then rest for a bit, then work for another 25 minutes.  During those bursts, you are working on one focused thing.  Thinking hard, working hard. Then, you kick back and let your brain say “ahhhhhh”.

It’s just like a workout – you don’t walk into the gym and spend an hour doing 100 pound curls. You do short bursts of directed and focused activity. Then stretch.

Mickey Loves Ya

And just like a workout, during your Pomodoro breaks it’s a very good idea to hydrate.

Personal Kanban dovetails nicely with Pomodoro. Your work-in-progress is handled in the 25 minute bursts of activity. Your Personal Kanban is always filtering and prioritizing what fits into those bursts.  The Personal Kanban takes on the role of your trainer – watching what you do, recommending the next set, helping you understand your exercises and optimize for the next ones.

Since Personal Kanban’s “got your back,” you understand that you’ve organized your tasks, chosen the best one at the time, and will get to the others in due course. Without this peace-of-mind, you can’t really focus.

True focus requires clarity, concentration, and commitment.  Personal Kanban gives you the organization to focus, while Pomodoro can give you the structured time.