Overview:
Speed up your writing with FocusBooster. This free, Windows 7 based, package can quickly train you to speed up your writing and in fact improve your productivity on other tasks as well.
What is it?
Simply it is just a time counter. You click and it counts down 25 minutes. In that time you focus on the one task. In my case writing this article and I’ve still got 20 minutes 49 second to go.
As the time gets near to the deadline the counter changes colour to a more urgent brownish, reddish colour. Warning that it is time to speed up.
When times up it gives a few ticks, like an alarm clock, and then stops. At this point you should stop the task and do something else as it starts a shorter five minute count down, which you could use as a break or to do a completely different task.
The idea behind FocusBooster
This is based on the Pomoro Technique, a time management method created by Francesco Cirillo in the 1980′s.
The technique uses the timer to break down periods of work into 25-minute intervals, (referred to as “pomodoros”), separated by breaks. The idea is that frequent breaks can improve mental agility.
There are five basic steps to implementing the technique:
- decide on the task to be done
- set the pomodoro (timer) to 25 minutes
- work on the task until the timer rings; record the task status
- take a short break (5 minutes)
- every four “pomodoros” take a longer break (15-20 minutes)
In this way you’ll be more effective, more focused, on a specific task. I find it helps speed up my writing. (13 minutes 54 seconds and the bar has turned brown, but I’ve written 216 words).
Other uses
I love the internet and I actually find using FocusBooster to control my sessions is quite useful. I allow myself 25 minutes to check the news, check Facebook, email friends, read blogs and browse. The moment the alarm goes I stop.
If I’ve been good, that means I’ve sorted my daily to-do list, I allow myself further sessions throughout the day. Interestingly I become more focused when browsing. Not faster, but I’m more particular on which sites I view.
The Technology
FocusBooster is the Adobe Air product I use. Air seems to be a platform for people to write mini-applications similar to Apple’s iPhone aps. For this use it seems quite good, but it does need updating quite a bit and I’m told that some of the other Air applications can be a bit memory hungry. But I’ve had no problems with this package.
Conclusion
FocusBooster is really useful for anyone working with computers. It really does help boost productivity and it’s really good to remind you to take breaks. (it’s now gone dark red with 1 minute 25 seconds to go. Enough time to do a Spellcheck).
Recomendation
Use Focus Booster with Windows Live Writer to write your initial draft blogs. You’ll find that you’ll speed up with your delivery.
Live writer is OK for simple graphics, but starts making things complicated if you are you using many images in a post.
Download and Information
http://www.focusboosterapp.com/
What do you think?
What do you think of this approach? Do you have any other suggestions on productivity or timekeeping?