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Monday, January 25, 2010

KeepFocused is a portable Pomodoro Technique timer for Windows

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In case you aren't familiar with it, the Pomodoro Technique is a time management system. The original book by Francesco Cirillo has been extremely popular since its publication in the early 1990s and it's now available as a free PDF download [Google Viewer link].

The technique is simple and involves setting up 25-minute intervals for a given task and taking a short break at the end (five minutes or so). Every four intervals you take a slightly longer break, and the cycle begins again.

While the only supplies necessary to follow the technique are a timer, a piece of paper, and a pen or pencil, you can cut down on desktop clutter by using a program on your PC - like Keep Focused.

It's a tiny, portable app which is as simple to use as Pomodoro itself. The white square is your "stop button" - click it to end a session. Click "play" to start a new session and tell Keep Focused what you're going to work on. Move the miniscule toolbar anywhere you wish by clicking on the hand icon and dragging.

When a session is done, take a break and then start anew!

Keep Focused is currently an alpha release, but it works well. It's a nice little productivity tool to add to your USB flash drive.

KeepFocused is a portable Pomodoro Technique timer for Windows originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 13 Jan 2010 16:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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