More than a decade ago, I was coaching a team of authors through a major revision of their first book on a tight production schedule. Meaning lots of hours logged at the computer.
That's a problem for someone like me with repetitive stress injury. Looking at loads of hours of keyboard work, I decided to try a new technique to reduce my chances of tweaking my arms and getting sidelined. In addition to scheduling weekly sessions with my awesome physical therapist, Vinny Marra, I adopted a new workflow, the Pomodoro Technique.
(Pomodoro means tomato in Italian, but in this case, it's a management technique created by Francesco Cirillo (he used a tomato-shaped kitchen timer) and adopted by a lot of software developers I know, who also log hours keying.)
How I use Pomodoro
I got through the project and liked Pomodoro so much I'm still using it to keep me focused, fuel my creativity and force me into frequent breaks that reduce the likelihood of overuse injury. Here's how:
- Set my timer (I've been using my phone) for 25 minutes
- Work till the timer goes off, finishing the sentence or paragraph I'm working on
- Save my work
- Set my timer for 5 minutes
- Walk around and do some shoulder, arm and hand stretches to loosen up and get the blood flowing
- Drink a glass of water
- Repeat
After 8 pomodori I have tomato sauce. After 4 hours of work, I snuggle up with my heating pad, eye pillow or body wrap for about 15 minutes to rest and reset before going on to another project. Give it a try!
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