Personally, I prefer an analog kitchen timer for Pomodoro Technique. As I wrote in my book Pomodoro Technique Illustrated it will support an established pattern of gestures and reflexes.
However, since both individuals and the environments we work in differ, there are also screen timers. Many are targeted for Mac OS X, such as Renzo Borgatti’s Pomodori and Guillaume Cerquant’s TimeBoxed. Viktor Nordling’s Pomodairo on the other hand, is developed in Flex in order to reach both Linux, Windows, and OS X with Adobe’s desktop application runtime AIR. In addition to these three there are many other screen timers.
Below is a wish list for a screen timer. Some of these features are already available in Renzo’s, Guillaume’s, and Viktor’s timers.
- Countdown instead of counting up time
- Default 25 minutes, but configurable length
- Title of each Pomodoro is saved in a file for statistical analysis
- Configurable ring signal and volume, or alternatively, the clock goes on top of the screen when the time runs out
- Title of the interruption is saved in a file for statistical analysis
- Activity Inventory where new titles can be added both during and after a Pomodoro
- Void Pomodori without saving to a file
- Automatic counting up of time during the break – without timebox or ringing
- P2P communication between team members’ screen timers:
- See the title of your friends present Pomodoro
- Delayed messaging to friend – appears in the recipient’s timer when it rings
If you have a developed a screen timer, please tell us about it in the Pomodoro Technique google group or in a comment to this blog post.
Pomodoro Timer
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Another one: http://pomodoro.ugolandini.com/index.html !
I’m playing a lot with flex in these days, perhaps I’ll find some time to follow your specifications…
Hi, an update about the Pomodairo application.
First of all, to be fair I did not write the application by myself. Fredrik Johansson was the initiative taker and has done most of the work.
Second, we have done a few updates, one is the “Automatic counting up of time during the break – without timebox or ringing”.
Third, since it is an open source project, we would love to get help from other Pomodoro fans out there. Just download the source and start fiddling around! There is a free trial of the Flex Builder here: http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/entitlement/index.cfm?e=flexbuilder3
Thanks!
Hi Staffan! Great blog, nice pictures! :)
I have some thoughts concerning Team Pomodoro…
1. P2P is usually hard to implement, especially in a distributed network (conceder international teams). So, it seems easier to employ a client-server approach (normally, Pomodoro is used in IT companies with well-established infrastructure, including dedicated servers). Anyway, if implemented in CGI, like PHP for example, it can be hosted on any free hosting, eliminating even this limitation. It can be either a traditional Web application, or just a web service doing REST – depends on a client you want to use.
2. Pomodoro Title could be a member’s secret. At least, it should be configurable. Otherwise there’s a chance of improper Technique usage because of people not wanting to announce what they are really doing at the moment.
Thanks, Constantine! I see your points and I think I agree on both.
Hi, I am using Minuteur which works great with the pomodoro technique: http://www.phg-home.com/index_mac.html
I use mine, it’s for Windows, it has also a To-do editable sheet.
Current version is 1.1. In the next version also Statistics will be available.
You can download it for free at
http://xoring.altervista.org
Bye.
Hi all,
just a quick update: the web site where you can download PomoTime is
http://www.xoring.com.
Thanx.
Focus Booster, also on the Adobe AIR platform, seems to work very well as a simple on-screen timer, keeping count of the number of sessions, with a small stay-on-top window (if that is what you want), ticking sounds and ring at the end. You can customise the Pomodoro length and the break length. I found it on http://www.download.com
Hi all,
I just stumbled across the Pomodoro technique yesterday, so I am quite fresh here. With regard to the ideal timer requirements and the P2P scenario: there is an execellent P2P library (open source, Java) named JGroups (http://ww.jgroups.org). I have applied this library to several commercial and non-commercial projects with very good results.
I must admit, I don’t feel like starting a new development all by myself (working alone on something isn’t too much fun), but if anyone is interested in participating, we could get a Java cross-plattform timer up in very little time.
Any volunteers?
Two Pomodoro timers that show why KISS is king:
1) TJ Holowaychuk created a Ruby based CLI timer with a rich interface:
http://github.com/visionmedia/pomo#readme
2) Johan Franzén created a DOS based snippet:
http://todaysfinding.blogspot.com/2010/01/simple-pomodoro-timer.html