Pomodoro

Personal micro time boxing.

From http://www.xpday.net/Xpday2007/session/PomodoroTechnique.html

We work in small, tightly focused time boxes of 25 minutes, followed by a 5 minutes pause. Each of these time boxes is called a "pomodoro", (Italian for "tomato") because we use a tomato-shaped kitchen timer to mark the time. Whenever we start working we turn off email, instant messaging, phone and we load the timer to 25 minutes. Then we just work, and do nothing else. When the timer rings, we push the keyboard away, get up, breathe, and perhaps reflect on the work we just did. Was it effective? We mark a tick on the story card, or personal journal, and rest for a few minutes.

See http://www.pomodorotechnique.com for more info.