Daily noon nap improves your performance

Published 2010-02-24 Uncategorized Leave a Comment
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It is possible to reduce the daily need for sleep with several hours. Research shows that the body then retains the same amount of non REM sleep, and instead cut down on REM sleep. The outcome is that the muscles get their rest, but the brain doesn’t get time to sort. The important post-learn-work will not happen. Things you thought were important are soon forgotten.

Sara Mednick of the University of California, San Diego, says that we would even benefit from taking an extra nap in the middle of the day: “Imagine a product that increases alertness, boosts creativity, reduces stress, improves perception, stamina, motor skills, and accuracy, enhances your sex life, helps you make better decisions, keeps you looking younger, aids in weight loss, reduces the risk of heart attack, elevates your mood, and strengthens memory. Now imagine that this product is nontoxic, has no dangerous side effects, and, best of all, is absolutely free. This miracle drug is, in fact, nothing more than the ‘nap’: the right nap at the right time.”

Matthew Walker of the University of California, Berkeley describes how memories are transferred from the hippocampus to the cortex. In a research project, he trained two groups of people in memory exercises. One group took a nap at noon. And they improved their performance in the afternoon. The second group had worse results.

Pomodoro Technique Illustrated translated into Korean

Published 2010-02-23 Adaptive Process , Agile , Brain , Decision Awareness , Estimating , Gestures , Howto , Index Cards , Iterative , Kitchen Timer , Lean , Memory , Mind , Mind Map , Mind Mapping , Mind Maps , Overlearning , Pomodoro Technique , Pomodoro Technique Illustrated , Procrastination , Programming , Psychology , Repertoire , Retrospective , Sustainable Pace , Technology , Tecnica del Pomodoro , Thoughts , Time Management , Time box Leave a Comment
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The Korean publisher Insight Book will translate Pomodoro Technique Illustrated into Korean. It’s not the first time that they publish books from the Pragmatic Bookshelf. They have previously, for example, translated Andy Hunt.

The Korean peninsula is a very old and culture rich part of the world. According to Wikipedia, ancient human fossils originating from about 100.000 BC have been discovered in Korea. I guess that my book will be sold in South Korea, a country with about 50 million citizens. It is said that South Korea is a very beautiful country. Among other things it’s the home of The Seokguram Grotto in Bulguksa temple.

Daily Scrum fine considered harmful

Published 2010-02-13 Agile , Brain , Decision Awareness , Howto , Mind , Programming , Psychology , Scrum , Thoughts 11 Comments
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Many Scrum teams implement a system of fines for those who come late to the Daily Scrum meeting. The Scrum Master collects a dollar — or whatever — to increase the discipline. In the long run it will actually have the opposite impact.

When extrinsic motivation (be in time to avoid fine) goes up, then the intrinsic motivation (be in time because you value this meeting) usually goes down. You can make people temporarily change their behavior because they are threatened, but you can’t use a threat to make them change what they value.

This is a well known fact in brain science.

Am I supposed to focus now?

Published 2010-02-12 Adaptive Process , Agile , Brain , Decision Awareness , Gestures , Howto , Iterative , Kitchen Timer , Lean , Memory , Mind , Pomodoro Technique , Pomodoro Technique Illustrated , Procrastination , Programming , Psychology , Repertoire , Sustainable Pace , Technology , Tecnica del Pomodoro , Thoughts , Time Management , Time box 1 Comment
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Do you have trouble remembering if you’re in a Pomodoro or not? If you use a mechanical kitchen timer, the ticking sound will remind you. But what if you work in a no-sounds-allowed office?

This is actually a very common problem. Even if you can’t have the ticking sound and the mechanical timer, I do believe that gestures are important. They help your brain to make the transition from free time to focus time and back.

You may put your cell phone on the desk every time you start a Pomodoro and remove it when you end. Or even simpler: take a business card and color it green on the backside with a felt-tip pen. Put the card on your desk. Every time you start a Pomodoro, turn the green side up. Every time you end a Pomodoro, turn the green side down.

  • You can see the card/phone while you’re in a Pomodoro. It reminds you that it’s focus time.
  • The gestures of turning the card will—after a while—be associated with starting and ending a Pomodoro.

The Inner Game of Tennis

Published 2010-02-6 Brain , Gestures , Howto , Mind , Psychology , Repertoire , Thoughts Leave a Comment
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The Inner Game of Tennis

The Inner Game of Tennis

You’ve always wanted to play tennis. The best way to learn is to enroll in a beginners course. To make it optimum effective you hire a private instructor. He stands next to you when you play and gives relevant instructions: bend your knees, hit the ball on the side, follow with the shot, move to the starting position, etc. If you just listen carefully and always do what he says, then you’ll soon be able to play the perfect game. Or maybe not?

In 1974 Tim Gallwey published the book The Inner Game of Tennis. He describes an unconventional way to learn new skills. Instead of constantly listening to detailed instructions, we must mentally step back and experience. Those detailed instructions that you want to get rid of don’t always come from a tennis instructor. Surprisingly, they often come from you. And they prevent your full potential.

Imagine that two persons live inside your mind. The first person continuously gives out orders and rates the outcome. Let’s call him Command-and-Control-Self, or C & C Self. The second person listens constantly and uncritically to C & C Self and tries to complete the orders. Everything he does is rated in a Good-to-Bad scale by C & C Self. We call the second person Obedient Self.

C & C Self’s chatter goes on and on and it prevents your natural feedback loop. You can’t focus while you constantly try to just follow orders. The first step is to disconnect this monologue; to get C & C Self to be quiet. The main trick in the Inner Game of Tennis is to get the mind to focus on something relevant and interesting, such as how the ball rotates, or how it flies. We step back and listen to the situation. How does it feel? What do we see? How does that sound? Then when we do act, we will let it just happen.

Without thinking about it, you have closed the feedback loop. You see, hear and feel what is going on and you let your body react to it. You have got rid of the concepts Good and Bad. Instead, you have built a trust in your body’s ability to self learn and carry out; without simultaneous involvement of the mind. You are listening to what is essential. You can only learn when you are aware of and feel your situation.

Exercise:

  1. Copy the flower in box Original to box #1. Try to make it look alike as much as possible.
  2. In step 1, you drew four petals. Regardless of the outcome, here are some questions: Did you try harder when the first petal wasn’t perfect? Did you criticize yourself when you were drawing the flower? Did you instruct your body when you drew the second, third and fourth petal (easy on the hand, pen to left now, etc.)? Take a look at one of the petals in box Original for 10-20 seconds. Close your eyes and then try to see it in your mind. Choose a proper color for it. Imagine how the petal sounds if it’s blowing in the wind. Then open your eyes and draw a large petal in box #2. Let the hand take control without the involvement of C & C Self.
  3. Now, copy the flower from the original box to box #3. Does it look better than the flower in box #1? You became the Inner Game superior in this exercise because you did not judge. Non-judgment approach to learning gives the best progress.
Petal

Petal

Pomodoro Technique Illustrated in Chinese

Published 2010-02-3 Agile , Brain , Decision Awareness , Estimating , Gestures , Howto , Index Cards , Iterative , Kitchen Timer , Lean , Memory , Mind , Overlearning , Pomodoro Technique , Pomodoro Technique Illustrated , Procrastination , Programming , Psychology , Repertoire , Sustainable Pace , Technology , Tecnica del Pomodoro , Thoughts , Time Management , Time box Leave a Comment
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PomodoroTechnique Illustrated will be translated into Chinese and published in paperback in China. Pragmatic Bookshelf has agreed a contract with the highly respected publisher Turing Book. Apart from having one of the world’s coolest company names, they are also the home of the Chinese IT profile Jiang Liu.

This is not the first time that Turing Book publishes books from the Pragmatic Bookshelf. They already created Chinese translations of Dave Thomas, Andy Hunt and Johanna Rothman.

Translations of Pomodoro Technique Illustrated to even more languages and markets are already in the pipe. More on that later.

Do you want to see Pomodoro Technique Illustrated in your language? Contact the publishers in your local market whose books you think are high quality. If they are interested, let me know and I will point you to the right people at Pragmatic Bookshelf.

The Pragmatic Programmer

The Pragmatic Programmer

Po and crazy aunt at software development office

Published 2010-01-19 Agile , Decision Awareness , Howto , Reggio Emilia , Repertoire , Technology , Thoughts , de Bono Hats 4 Comments
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Convergent thinking: Our experiences help us to solve familiar problems. We use logical thinking to find a suitable solution in an efficient way. Unfortunately, our experiences are limited. They are not sufficient to solve all possible problems. When we lack relevant experience, they can instead become a barrier that prevents us from thinking outside the box.

Divergent thinking: With creative thinking, you generate ideas that are not based on your experiences. You don’t judge ideas while you generate them. Then when you have enough good ideas, you use your logical thinking to categorize, judge and prioritize them. But how can you generate ideas that are free from your experiences?

Po: provocative operation

Edward de Bono’s Lateral Thinking technique includes the concept Po. A Po is an idea which moves thinking into new unknown territory. You make a statement and see what the consequences are. The syllable “po” is found in English words like suppose, possible, and hypothesis—words that point forward. De Bono says that provocation goes hand in hand with movement and that’s why Po also can mean provocative operation. With Po you release all the crazy ideas:

  • Po cups have holes in their bottom
  • Po customers will have yellow t-shirts
  • Po blogs don’t have letters

Instead of judging the value and realism in a Po statement, you look for what is interesting about it, what is different in it and what this idea might lead to. Perhaps the crazy idea is a stepping stone to something new and successful.

Atelierista: the crazy aunt

Reggio Emilia is an Italian pedagogy for preschools. Every Reggio preschool has a centrally located place called Atelier. It is a place for experimentation and discovery. What makes Atelier so unique in child pedagogy is the person who works there: the Atelierista—a practicing artist. She has no training in pedagogy; she does not even work as a teacher. Think of her as the crazy aunt. She does things in a way that you really wasn’t taught to do.

“Creativity seems to emerge from multiple experiences, coupled with a well-supported development of human resources, including a sense of freedom to venture beyond the known”, wrote Reggio’s initial idea blacksmith Loris Malaguzzi. What workplaces can see the value in hiring people without any clear relation to the services or products produced—someone who is at the office only to inspire and create new ideas?

Consider this statement. Is it possible in your workplace?

  • Po software development companies has an Atelier with a Atelierista—a practicing artist, without knowledge of software development. She shows us crazy ideas.

Bibliography from Pomodoro Technique Illustrated

Published 2010-01-18 5 S , Adaptive Process , Agile , Brain , Daily Mind Map , Decision Awareness , Estimating , Extreme Programming , GTD , Gestures , Getting Things Done , Howto , Index Cards , Iterative , Kitchen Timer , Lean , Memory , Mind , Mind Map , Mind Mapping , Mind Maps , Overlearning , Pair Programming , Pomodoro Technique , Pomodoro Technique Illustrated , Procrastination , Programming , Psychology , Repertoire , Retrospective , Scrum , Sustainable Pace , Technology , Tecnica del Pomodoro , Thoughts , Time Management , Time box , XP 3 Comments
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There are many references in Pomodoro Technique Illustrated. Below is a list of the books in the bibliography linked to Amazon. In a future post I will also put links to the referred articles and web sites.

How many of these have you read? Do you have any recommended reading for me?

Pomodoro Technique Illustrated climbs in best seller lists

Published 2010-01-12 Adaptive Process , Agile , Brain , Daily Mind Map , Decision Awareness , Estimating , GTD , Gestures , Getting Things Done , Howto , Index Cards , Iterative , Kitchen Timer , Lean , Memory , Mind , Mind Map , Mind Mapping , Mind Maps , Overlearning , Pair Programming , Pomodoro Technique , Pomodoro Technique Illustrated , Procrastination , Programming , Psychology , Repertoire , Sustainable Pace , Technology , Tecnica del Pomodoro , Thoughts , Time Management , Time box 1 Comment
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Pomodoro Technique Illustrated is finally available in all book stores and it immediately climbed high in the bestseller lists. Here’s a quick view from Amazon’s time management lists:

Silent Pomodoro for cubicle workers

Published 2009-12-5 Gestures , Kitchen Timer , Pomodoro Technique , Pomodoro Technique Illustrated , Tecnica del Pomodoro , Time Management , Time box 2 Comments
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Are you working in an office where kitchen timer noise disturbs your fellow neighbor? You want a signal after 25 minutes, but it must not be audio-based. The question was raised at the Pomodoro Technique mailing list. David White had the answer. At Think Geek, you can buy a “Sonic Bomb Alarm Clock with Bed Shaker” for $ 39.99.

The original purpose of the Sonic Boom Clock is to wake up the deep sleeping Ninja. But it can of course also be used to signal to the deeply focused Pomodoro Technique practitioner that it is time for a short break.

The recommended way to use it, according to Think Geek is: “Turn the sound alarm off and tape the bed shaker to your office chair. You’ll be vibrated awake without disturbing the drones.” But it can certainly also be used as a standalone Pomodoro on your desk.

Sonic Boom Clock

Sonic Boom Clock

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