Timemanage.me and Pomodoro Focus
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Pomodoro is a productivity technique that consists of completing our tasks by concentrating on their execution in periods of 25 minutes, to then have a 5-minute break in which we can distract ourselves, and thus repeat. For those of us who are a little distracted and given to procrastination, it is very useful and practical, so it is appreciated that in Windows 8 we have options to apply this technique more easily. Among these options, the 2 applications that we will review today stand out: Pomodoro Focus and Timemanage.me
We start with the simplest alternative. Timemanage.me is a Metro application, completely free, which focuses on the most essential of the Pomodoro technique: a timer that marks work and rest times.
"Has notifications to notify us when these times are over, even if we have the application minimized. What yes, at the end of the break after a work period, we have to manually indicate when we want to start the next work period. In the options we can customize the duration of each period, and also define a longer rest period that applies after having done several pomodoros (or work periods) ."
"The application can be put in snap mode so that it uses only a fraction of the screen, and we have the rest available to work on.The design is very minimalist and simple, although some visual customization option is missing, or that the colors of the application change according to the accent colors of Windows 8."
The other cool app in the Windows Store is Pomodoro Focus. This app is paid, but it offers more options than Timemanage.me and most of them are very useful.
What stands out the most is that combines Pomodoro functionality with task management We open the application, write down in a list the tasks that we want to do today, along with how long we think it will take each one, and this shows how many pomodoros that time equates to (for example, I planned to write this article in 50 minutes, which equates to 2 25-minute pomodoros)."
With the list of tasks in hand, we choose one, and we begin the first pomodoro. Here another advantage of this app comes to light: it allows us to pause the timer, without having to stop it completely (unlike Timemanage.me).
After we have completed one or several tasks, Pomodoro Focus displays a small summary of the productive time invested in each one, the total of time that we have lost due to interruptions (that is, the total time in which the pomodoros have been paused), and a comparison between what we supposed that we were going to take in each task, with respect to what we have actually taken .
We can also consult a graph that shows the total productive and lost time in interruptions per day, during the last month (compared to , Timemanage.shows me a graph that only reports the number of pomodoros completed per day, somewhat less helpful).
In short, lots of valuable information to keep track of how productivewe are being.
The only problems I see with Pomodoro Focus are its lack of visual customization (the interface uses a background image that isn't exactly ugly, but you can't change it), and that marking a task as completed requires more clicks than it should. But in general it is a very competent alternative to improve our personal productivity.
Finally, it should be mentioned that Timemanage.me will soon include task management features similar to Pomodoro Focus (reportedly on its developers' website), so those who are only interested in those features may want to wait to get them for free with Timemanage.I.
Timemanage.meVersion 1.0.0.18
- Developer: KUAA
- Download it at: Windows Store
- Price: Free
- Category: Productivity
Tool for time management using the Pomodoro Technique. You can run a Pomodoro, do your daily work, and then be notified when the time is up. You will also be able to see how many Pomodoros were executed successfully per day and month.
Pomodoro FocusVersion 1.3.0.3
- Developer: Wahlin Consulting
- Download it at: Windows Store
- Price: $1.99 (Free 7-day trial)
- Category: Productivity
Pomodoro Focus is an app that uses the Pomodoro technique to instantly increase your focus on tasks, track your productive time, and even track how much you're interrupted while working on tasks .
