Tips & Tools: 2 Steps to Improve Handling Your Tasks

You may be like me and have a plethora of work tasks to be tackled frequently or just once, in urgency ranging from “I’ll be in the sewer if I don’t do it now” to “Oh well, whenever I feel like it”.

If you don’t have that problem you’re a person of leisure or a total slacker. Go read something else.

For a daily task overview – step 1 – my tool of choice is home-brewed and Excel-based. Decidedly not elegant, but it works really well for me and also my assistant, to a point where someone from Apple’s Business Software division once commented “what you created doesn’t exist as a ready-made software solution.”

My addition of a complimentary tool, step 2, is an egg timer of sorts, a re-discovery for me. Read: At some point in time I must have been really smart but then dumbed down. But only a tiny bit. Now I’m smart again. – Sigh of relief!

The timing tool is called a Pomodoro Timer, in my case an app for Macs and Windows called Tomighty (https://tomighty.github.io). But any timer works. The idea behind the Pomodoro technique is to break up tasks into specific segments with short breaks in between. Francesco Cirillo, who invented it, uses 25 min segments with 5 min breaks in between and longer breaks every 90 min. Pomodoro, the Italian word for tomatoe, comes from Cirillo using a kitchen timer in the shape of a... – yes, you guessed right. Brownie point!

Donationware and Pomodoro timer app "Tomighty" by Celio Cidral jr, icon by José Campos

I used a Pomodoro freeware app years ago and loved it. But when Apple’s constant OS upgrades left that app behind, I somehow couldn’t find a good replacement. Last week, trying out several timers parallel, I did. And I love it. The way it works and the preference options are perfect for me, and (on a Mac) it sits in the menubar, which I prefer over a desktop floater.

The effects of the Pomodoro timer on my workflow are multiple:

• I realise how much time I need to complete tasks and get better in planning out my work time,
• Even though not having ADHD, I’m considerably more focused and don’t doodle (at least not as much: progress),
• I get my tush off the chair in regular intervals and give my back, neck and eyes a break (meaning: no screen time during breaks), and
• After a week of use, I still crack up about the sound indicating a segment is over. But then, I’m easily entertained.

Try it out; highly recommended!

What tools or technique do you use to get things done?