An Improvement on the Pomodoro Technique

You’re likely already familiar with the time-management method known as the “pomodoro technique,” especially if you’re gay and have ever used Instagram, where it’s likely been indirectly advertised to you by way of a simple, brightly-colored infographic that manages to be slightly insulting and useful at the same time. It’s named after the Italian word for tomato, to remind us all to incorporate the principle of umami into our everyday lives.

The basic premise, as I understand it, is to divide each day into a series of 25-minute increments (one for each tomato on the hour, where each increment is an interval of tomato-hours) followed by 5-minute breaks, such that if X is fewer than three pomodoros (in tomato-work time), one returns to Zero Hour and repeats until three pomodoros are attained (sauce time), at which point the fourth pomodoro may be converted into a cabbage-nap or five mini-pommos, whichever you like. Each practitioner of this method must supply their own tomatoes, mind, to say nothing of the cabbages. A useful method if you happen to be a home gardener, but I believe I have improved upon it. My technique is as follows:

1. Decide on the task to be done.

2. Take twenty minutes to recover from the decision-making and information-assimilating process. (This can be best achieved by taking a shower and sitting around in a towel, but the shower is not required.)

3. Twenty minutes = forty minutes.

4. Wearing a towel subtracts twenty (meaning forty) minutes from the clock.

5. Begin “settling in” phase, anywhere between 15-45 minutes of getting situated, finding a more comfortable position, brewing tea or coffee, cleaning out sink or work area, noticing things, checking phone, neck stretches, &etc.

6. Complete a task.

7. “Buffer zone.” (Towel is not necessary but strongly encouraged.) No two tasks may touch on this schedule, as this would negatively reinforce the reverse-ionization process and could lead to electricity buildup or even a systems overload. Take at least twenty minutes to recover.

8. Decompression (distinct from buffer zone) until body and mind are restored to total neutrality.

9. Decide on the next task to be done.

10. Repeat steps 2-9 as needed, adding a supplemental “buffer zone” with each successfully-completed task, to reduce Townsend discharge.

11. Do not attempt any version of this method after sunset. All tasks must be completed before night falls; any outstanding tasks remaining can only be attempted the subsequent day.

With this method it is possible to achieve as many as 2 to 3 tasks in a single day, so long as you live alone and nobody else tries to contact you.

If at any point during the Puttanesca Method (so-called because there are more olives in it than in the Pomodoro) someone tries to contact you – whether by text, by phone call, by email, by saying your name quietly in the next room, whatever — cease all work at once and go directly back to bed.

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