Yamazumi Your Life!

The Power of the Pomodoro

Simplicity is power. The beauty of the Pomodoro Technique (R), the personal productivity tool developed decades ago by Francesco Cirillo, is that it works. Exponentially.

I was a skeptic at first. A grizzled veteran of innumerable time management strategies and life-hacking ideas, I snootily disdained people who couldn't maintain focus for 25 minutes and needed a tomato egg timer to do so. Then I realised that I had become that person.

We are all drinking from a fire hose of information, in the poignant words of Zen Habits sage Leo Babauta. Since my college days, when I could immerse myself in deep concentration for hours, the world has changed. We are bombarded with incessant, microscopic pinpricks of demands for our time, each of which saps our finite energies to one tiny degree.

We suffer hundreds of daily emails and attachments scrolling through our smartphones and our computers. We mainline on blogs and apps and RSS feeds, secure in the illusion of productivity. It is so much more fun to frolic in the enticing shallows of knowledge and avoid the rigorous challenge of intensive, purposeful thought. Yet twenty five minutes can change everything.

The trick is to focus, intensely and with gusto, on a single topic for a defined unit of time - the so-called pomodoro. The rhythmic cadence of the accompanying tomato timer soothes the mind, allowing your haring and darting thought stream to address itself to a single topic. The rituals become almost compulsive; the process of goal definition, the logging and the setting and re-setting of that little red tomato - I use My Little Pomodoro on my MacBook Pro and Pomodoro on my iPhone. And after 117 pure Pomodoros of lean time, ranging from 25 minutes to 1 hour in duration, my productivity has started to surge.

Yes there are caveats. The secret is goal definition - if your objectives are skewed or in denial, you will simply accomplish more junk, more efficiently. Yet if force-ranking is applied, the most important tasks are set in stone, and the frog is eaten daily, then the results can be quite simply astounding. The Pomodoro works equally effectively for the green and yellow phases of the Yamazumi board - both the leading edge and execution phases, and the essential consolidation and maintenance modes. 

The technique sometimes struggles in unplanned, malleable office environments, such as a trading floor, when constant interruptions are the norm or instant reaction is required. But for any manager who has autonomy over task, and needs simple and persistent motivation to knock down obstacles, the Pomodoro is a fantastic technique. I would still recommend additional time after the Pomodoro ends for reflective integration, when we step outside the tramlines of task completion and seek new ideas, connections and insights.

Yet when you need to take a scythe to a swathe of tasks, then Pomodoro is a fine solution. Everyone has lofty goals and ambitious dreams; it is in the mundane, apparently overwhelming steps to achieve them that people lose heart.

Don't. Set that tomato timer and take just one more step.

(c) WestOcean 2011

All trademarks mentioned herein are acknowledged.

 

 

The Power Law that will Triple your Productivity

Tim Ferriss is the acclaimed author of the "Four Hour Work Week" and a lifestyle revolutionary. He has questioned the blind cultural consensus that every human being should spend from 9am to 5pm in the office. "Presenteeism"is not only unrelated to genuine results - it is a tremendous human waste. Who of us wants to go to the grave not having learned what we could really accomplish?

Yamazumi Your Life (YYL) is a huge fan of the Pareto Principle - the concept that only a vital few inputs drive the vast majority of realised results. Ferriss runs with old Vilfredo's insights and argues that a simple focus on the truly essential can leverage output dramatically. The first part of the Triple Power Law is therefore:

Rule 1: Focus on the vital few - the key actions that deliver maximum results 

The risk of course is that work can still sprawl and expand, as Parkinson's law famously dictates that work ALWAYS expands to fill the time available. Hence Ferriss comes up with a second maxim:

Rule 2: Set clear deadlines and limit work time on any item

Yes I agree. Work can be a voracious monster which devours all available time before it. We do not have to perform every task to an equally high standard. When starting any task, it is worth assigning a rating of "1 to 5" in terms of the quality - from passable to perfect - that it deserves. Don't let perfectionism be your own pet monster. So far so good. But I would add a third rule to the Triple Power Law - one that is essential to manage, maximise and maintain success.

Rule 3: Think Total Process, Think Yamazumi  

Only by disciplined process thinking will maximum efficiency be realised. It is a misconception that all time can be cutting-edge, coal-face time. Every job requires set-up time and maintenance time. These must be factored in to every process and not skimped because of any arbitrary self-imposed deadline. Someone can cut costs by not insuring their house then live to regret it when it burns down.  

Equally, action without measurement is blind. The beauty of Yamazumi Charting is that it focuses on total process and its components in a bold, visually dramatic way. See a powerful graphical example of a Yamazumi Chart that shows its utility. Meditate and reflect on every aspect of the project or process and in a spirit of continuous improvement aim for and expect the best. You can spend a lifetime climbing a ladder,only to find it is against the wrong wall. Take time out to detach yourself from the heat of battle and think about the oak and the acorn, the journey and the destination.

Then apply the Triple Power Law and enjoy the results.

(c) WestOcean 2010 

The Power of the Pattern Interrupt

The pattern interrupt is one of the time-tested classics of cognitive psychology. You're grappling with and trying to overcome a particularly challenging problem or roadblock. The frontal attack strategy isn't working - it's like the proverbial "broken record". The answer is often simply to step out of the rut and spend a couple of hours doing something totally different. This will frequently release trapped mental energy, almost like the dam in a reservoir bursting. You often find that when you return to the original problem the problem has not changed, but you have.

So far, so conventional. Yet if we all know this, why is this so hard to do? First, there's the heavy weight of social expectation, particularly in a commercial environment. We are told to relentlessly focus on a single goal, so that even re-framing the problem can appear like a sign of defeat - a blow to our pride. That's is why it's always best to remind ourselves of the Pareto Rule - that the critical success factors that deliver the 80% of results are contained within the 20% of inputs. There is no glory or honour in slogging through the dreary and irrelevant 80% of inputs. That's why I recommend using the Yamazumi Board as a key control device to assess what REALLY matters in any projects.

Pattern interrupt, if managed prudently, can work at a "lifestyle design" level too. We all realise the importance of a change of scene at an intuitive level, which is why we take holidays outside our home town and even travel to far-flung and exotic locations. Of course travel is aimed not primarily at changed our surroundings but ourselves. You may not wish to take a gap year from integration testing to travel to Japan to qualify as a snowboarding instructor (as a friend recently did) but a simple walk in the park could have a similar refreshing effect. 

The power of the pattern interrupt to re-frame problems and recharge energies is dramatic. Here on the written page it seems blindingly obvious, but applying it is as usual the tough part. Proper process control is essential. When does a genuine and beneficial pattern interrupt become a distraction or a simple avoidance strategy? If you're working on a big project,the follow guidelines will help.

• Keep the pattern interrupt short (two hours at most)
• Keep it tightly defined in scope and beneficial in effect. Do not exceed the initial plan.
• Reflect on the process afterward. Take time to think and recharge. What has the pattern interrupt given you?

Now, on to the next project!

James Rozel 

You may not need a holiday - just a quick pattern interrupt...:-)