Tomato working method: Make time your best friend

Of all our opponents, the most powerful is time. In the face of time, we do not have the opportunity to deceive, the time of the passing of a second, the ultimate winner is always time. We often think, "Oh, two days have passed, the task has no progress, tomorrow is the deadline, what to do?" "We are often busy coping with one task after another, having no time to learn to recharge, enjoy life, and get into a lot of anxiety. With the continuous development of society, industrial civilization has greatly enriched the interpersonal communication means and access to information means, our time use efficiency has become less. Sinking down and concentrating on one thing is becoming an impossible task for the vast majority of people. The main reasons are two:

• too much interference . People can't concentrate on one thing and then do something else. You are often absorbed in the work, suddenly receive an e-mail, and then put down the things at hand, back to the mail. After sending the message, switch back to the original task. Each time a task is switched, it often takes more time to complete the original task. (The average time to switch is to increase the original task by 25%.) References 3, 4). Imagine a lot of people looking at mail 50 or 100 times a day, as well as MSN, Phone, and so on.
• lack of clear goals and priorities . All the time to deal with urgent tasks, keep fighting the fire. These urgent tasks may come from the boss, other members of the team, or from family and friends. In order to cope with new emergency tasks, we often have to put down the work at hand, and in the completion of the new task, there are interruptions, and eventually in the ongoing task interruption and switching lost direction. One day I didn't know what was busy.

Eliminating distractions and ensuring that the highest priority tasks are completed first is an issue that must be addressed in order to improve the efficiency of personal time use. This is similar to the problem that Agile software development (Scrum, XP, Lean) solves. For similar issues in software development, agile development solutions from the 90 's by Ken Schwaber, Jeff Sutherland, Kent Beck, Martin Fowler, and others, including time boxes, undisturbed iterations, priority-based task listings , pull tasks, commitments, plans and reflections, and so on. Coincidentally, from the beginning of the 90, the Italians Francesco Cirillo also designed and developed tomato technology (the Pomodoro Technique,pomodoro Italian "tomato") based on the same strategy to manage our personal time. The tool used is simple, a kitchen timer (Pomodoro timer), three simple tables (the same day task List to-do, Task List activity inventory and record history data table records).

Tomato time

In agile development, the cycle of an iteration is usually 1-4 weeks, and one iteration of tomato technology is 25 minutes, called a tomato session. Similar to an Agile development iteration, a tomato session begins with the task List of the day to find the highest priority task, and then to complete the task without interruption until the timer's bell rings. At the end of each period, you can have 35 minutes of free control before you start a new time period. During the iterative process of agile development, the team focuses only on the tasks in the current iteration, does not respond to new task requirements, and all new tasks are placed on the product Backlog. In tomato time, individuals also adopt the same strategy, in emergency situations, the new task will be placed on the day task List, as an unplanned task of the day, and the general task, only need to add a new task item on the task list. Then continue the current work without interruption. Even when the task is complete, the timer is not ringing, the processing method is simple, and the remaining time to "refactor" the completed task to make it a little better.

Work schedule

The following is an example of a working schedule for a programmer using tomato technology.

In this calendar is well integrated into the Deming Cycle PDCA (planning plan; performing do; checking check; correcting act). Each day begins with a tomato-based period, and the last tomato session ends with an analytical examination. Daily history records generally include plan execution, unplanned tasks, estimates and realities, number of interruptions, distractions, and so on. With these historical data, we can easily observe ourselves:

• Whether the plan execution is valid
• Estimate whether it is accurate, how many deviations
• How many tasks are not scheduled and what do they do separately?
• There is not much interference in the work, the main interference is what

When we have a clear understanding of our time use through real data, we can design our solutions in a reflective way. Such constant repetition of time efficiency will be continuously improved.

Eliminate interference

The biggest benefit of tomato technology is that it helps us focus and eliminate distractions. Each tomato session is only 25 minutes, and unless it is a very urgent situation, it is generally possible to respond after the current period has been completed. Usually we encounter two kinds of disturbances:

• internal interference , the main thing is that they want to do something, such as drinking water, check mail, online chat, internet and so on. There are two main solutions for internal disturbances, the first of which is a targeted plan to deal with such tasks, such as the time slots in the calendar that are specifically designed to handle the mail, and the other way to take advantage of times outside the tomato window, such as free time and lunch time.
• external interference , such as phone calls, colleagues to ask questions and so on. Unlike internal interference, external interference needs to be dealt with by other people, so different strategies are required. The specific strategy is "notify inform, discuss negotiate, and respond to call back later". You can use the message machine to answer the phone, the Mail can also be temporarily placed in the Inbox later processing. If someone comes in front of you, you can tell him, "I'll get back to you in 20 minutes after I'm done with my work." "And then go on with the work at hand. A 25-minute or one or two-hour night is acceptable for an emergency task in the usual sense. It may not be a big problem for the other person to wait for 25 minutes, but it is of great significance to me and I can continue to concentrate on the most important thing I have on hand. Of course, it is difficult to avoid, there will have to cancel the current tomato session, to deal with the very urgent task of the situation, which is actually the same as in scrum to cancel the current sprint, only a last resort to do so.

Whenever there is a disturbance, make a mark on the Daily Task list and, if necessary, add an unplanned task to the Daily Task list (if it is an emergency task) and to the task list. Putting distractions into the task list gives us a chance to rethink whether each task is so important, whether it really needs it, and it's likely that a lot of the tasks on our task list have become unnecessary over time. In addition, all disturbances are explicitly marked on the Daily Agent task list and the history table. Every day you can reflect on the number of distractions and content. Interfering with data can be a matter of more conscious attention to time efficiency, prompting us to minimize interference by re-planning, adjusting strategies, and so on. For example, an effective strategy for too many phone calls is to put the phone on a message every day, go to the conference room, and tell other colleagues where to find themselves in an emergency. In the case of too many messages, you can arrange for several tomato sessions to concentrate on the mail.

Mission Planning and estimation

Another benefit of tomato technology is that it provides us with a new way of estimating and planning. Each task on the task list needs to have a scale estimate, which is actually the number of tomato sessions that will be spent to complete the task. Since each time period is an undisturbed "pure" input, the size of the task can be effectively linked to time by the number of tomato sessions. By comparing the actual amount of tomato time spent with the estimated value, the analysis can help improve the estimation ability. At the same time, by analyzing the number and content of non-scheduled tasks in history, we can also help us to better understand our own time-use situations and thus help to plan personal time.

The idea of changing time

Tomato technology can change our attitude to time. Time became a tomato session. Every 25 minutes, tick ticks are reduced from 25 minutes to 0. Thus give us a sense of urgency (eustress), urging us to complete the task as soon as possible, to make a decision, so as to effectively improve efficiency. The improvement of efficiency can effectively enhance self-confidence and sense of accomplishment.

Tomato working method: Make time your best friend