Welcome to our series of RoundPie interviews, where we show you the people who use RoundPie and their stories. Our users will tell you...
- how they use RoundPie
- why they track time and use the Pomodoro method
- what kind of results they were able to achieve
Jonathan Griffin, Editor & SEO Developer
What is your name and what do you do?
I have two hats.
Firstly, I'm Editor of The Webmaster, my passion project that now takes up the majority of my time. I love to produce tutorials and other guides to help small business owners be successful online.
Secondly, I am an SEO Developer or rather I’m a developer that specializes in Jamstack websites, with a specialism of technical SEO. This includes site audits, development of SEO related features, and consulting on site structure & strategy.
When have you started using RoundPie?
I am a bit of a purist when it comes to the Pomodoro technique, having read Francesco Cirillo’s book on the subject in a desperate attempt to overcome my procrastination.
It is important to me to keep to the correct timing schedule, with automatic breaks of the correct lengths occurring automatically. I spent a good month or so trying out different apps, and the RoundPie was so much more advanced than anything else out there.
I’ve only been using the app for about 4 months, but already got so much more work done, that I cannot imagine being without it.
What is the main reason you track your time and use the Pomodoro technique?
One of the most important elements of the Pomodoro technique is planning your work at the beginning of the day, and where necessary splitting up tasks into smaller chunks.
I found I was getting distracted too easily, moving from one task to another, or taking too many breaks that I was not productive enough. This was especially the case on the more tedious, repetitive tasks.
By planning, and breaking up the tasks into smaller bitesize chunks I find that I can work solidly for those 25 minutes for each Pomodoro. I also find the repeated breaks keep my mind fresher, and more focussed. If you are new to the Pomodoro technique, I highly recommend you read Francesco Cirillo’s book.
How do you most commonly use RoundPie?
As I said earlier, I am a big fan of the RoundPie due to many of the advanced features it has, but also because of its simplicity in allowing you to automate all the breaks properly as per the proper technique.
As a developer, I use GitHub for my tasks. In fact, I use Zenhub, which integrates seamlessly with GitHub. The important thing about Zenhub, and why I mention it specifically is that they enable you to assign a time unit to each task. Each time unit is a representation of a specific amount of time (without actually stating what that is), so I use that to mean a Pomodoro. This is important to my planning element.
Then, I use the desktop RoundPie with the GitHub integration to actually time my Pomodoro’s. At the beginning of each day, I will favorite each of the Github tasks that I want to action each day, and then filter by favorites in the app so I only see those tasks.
I then work through the tasks. My GitHub \ Zenhub task manager is also open so I know how many Pomodoros I have assigned to each task.
What is your favorite RoundPie feature(s)?
The Chrome app has to be my favorite. I have blocked all those websites I used to check a hundred times a day, so I can only visit them during my breaks.
The amount of time I still try to open the websites is still too high, but at least now all I see is a blocked page.
Your best tip for tracking time or using the Pomodoro technique?
My most important tip would be to make sure you break down your tasks and plan out your day before you start work. Spending just 10 minutes in the morning doing this can be the difference between easily getting the work done, or failing because the sheer amount of work needed to be done is overwhelming.
Jonathan Griffin,
The Webmaster & SEO Developer
United Kingdom
If you would like to be featured in this interview series as well, please contact us at info@theroundpie.com, for a chance to show:
- your Pomodoro Technique and RoundPie story about productivity
- your name and photo
- link to your website
Looking forward to your submissions!
What would you like to know and what would be the best way to share this information to you? What is the best tips & tricks, what workaround do you use? We'd really appreciate your insight on these ones to make our integrations better, more productive and much more efficient. Comments, tweets are always welcome.