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2016-05-01

w̶i̶e̶l̶d̶l̶i̶n̶u̶x̶.̶c̶o̶m̶

The Benefits of the Calendar and Pomodoros System

I used my calendar + pomodoros system. Its main benefit is that it turns all tasks into synchronous tasks.

This system consists of 30-minute pomodoros where I break for (up to) 10 minutes each time. So I work at the next asynchronous task for at most 20 minutes, then break to breathe, stretch, write my get-it-done note, triage new emails, and check my calendar.

The value-adding effect that this has is that it essentially turns my to-do list of asynchronous-tasks into a bunch of synchronous tasks! (asynchronous-task meaning a task that that needs to be done now/asap; a task that doesn’t necessarily have a deadline but that just has to get done “the sooner the better”.)

For example a task could be replying/progressing/solving a customer software support case from the existing queue of cases. For another example is checking my email inbox and reading the new emails and triaging action-items to my calendar or to-do list.

Why is this calendar + pomodoros system value-adding? Because as a Professional Software Development and Support Engineer, I need to do both sync tasks and async tasks, and turning async into sync lets me treat all as sync which simplifies my flow by an order of magnitude.

So now I can check for calendar events each half-hour (a synchronous task that needs to be done every half hour by the clock), and at the same time check my email (which would otherwise be asynchronous because an email could come every minute or every 4 hours, and could be processed immediately if I wanted)

To summarize, the main benefit of the calendar + pomodoros system that I’ve started using, is that it turns all tasks into synchronous tasks.


Edit: This post was previously published at: w̶i̶e̶l̶d̶l̶i̶n̶u̶x̶.̶c̶o̶m̶/2016-05-01-synchronous-asynchronous-flow-calendar.php
[2019 edit: Moved to: https://i̶n̶v̶e̶s̶t̶o̶r̶w̶o̶r̶k̶e̶r̶.̶c̶o̶m̶/2016/... .html.]