Support Pomodoro
I'd like to suggest support for the Pomodoro time management technique http://www.pomodorotechnique.com
I’m not an expert in the method but it looks useful, simple and popular.
My initial thoughts are that this can be delivered in phases:
1) New fields on tasks to a) Estimate number of pomodoros required and b) Increment the number of pomodoros completed
2) Provide a pomodoro timer. So a user selects a task and starts the pomodoro. The pomodoro flashes or similar to indicate the end. The task pomodoro counter is incremented automatically? A second timer starts for the inter pomodoro break?
3) Various ways of slicing and the dicing the pomodoro data for process improvement ‘reports’
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Leo Ufimtsev commented
I'm an active pomodoro user.
I would suggest to have budgeted time and pomodoro count to be synced.
I.e, 2 pomodoros would change the budgeted time to 50 minutes and setting time to 1:15 would make 3 pomodoros. (1.5 pomodors would be allowed if time is set to ~37 mins)Button (and importantly a keyboard shortcut) to start a pomodoro would be great. Then the time would be added as an effort.
This would attract the pomodoro crowd to this project.
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Bryce Martin commented
This is a great idea, which I was just going to suggest myself. You can download this timer that I have been using.... http://code.google.com/p/pomodairo/
One of the great things is that it allows you to set your Pomo length, your break length, and set how often you have short breaks and long breaks.
Here is my idea of implementation. Have a button on the toolbar which allows me to "Work via Pomodoro" Then when I select a task in my list a little "start" timer button appears in the tool bar so that I can start my Pomo. Then when that Pomo finishes the time will be automatically attributed to that task. Sort of an automatic start/stop timer. Then, if you don't change tasks you can "Resume Tracking" and the next Pomo session will go towards it as well. You should also be able to say how you want your breaks tracked. Track them against the task, or not. Some people might consider the 5 minute break time part of the billable hours since you'd be tracking your breaks that way anyway and charging for them. Or, if you choose not to bill that time you can turn it off and it won't be tracked against the timer value that is there.
So if your Pomo is set to 20 minutes then each Pomo will add 20 minutes to the time worked. I agree with #1, that you need a way to estimate your Pomo sessions and report on them to see how you are doing. Or maybe just integrate that will the time estimates based on your Pomo time. Either way would work I think.