Scott Hanselman has posted about a tool called RescueTime that he uses to monitor personal productivity. Fine and dandy. Read his post.
What I wonder is if this is just another version of Pomodoro, and as such, should be avoided like the plague.
disclaimer: I’ve practiced Pomodoro in the past. In the context that I practiced it in, I actually thought it wasn’t that bad. Actually, it was, in the context I practiced it in, pretty decent. Once I thought about it a bit, I dropped it like the plague, but not because it wasn’t well thought out.
Mario Fusco is, in this context, best known for criticizing Pomodoro:
“Let me slightly reframe my thoughts. Have you ever seen a civil engineer using a timer to keep his concentration while working on his projects? Will you trust in a lawyer employing the Pomodoro technique while is trying to defend you? Will you let a surgeon that needs a timer to stay concentrated on his job to operate you?”
If you are a software developer, do you really need a 3rd party tool to figure out that you are spending too much time surfing porn that it gets in the way of delivering software?