The Power of Pomodoros

In a truly perverted twist, I now start doing things I'm supposed to as a means of avoiding setting a pomodoro.

However after the January CFAR workshop suggested it in passing, I decided to give it a try; and I realized I had it all wrong.

So in other words, you've been using it for less than 2 months and are still in your honey moon period.

What you do during the break matters a lot. It should be rewarding and energizing or relaxing. Which reminds me, I'm on a break and shouldn't be visiting LW.

Anyway, I've had success reducing an Ugh Field (around studying) by celebrating like a madman when the timer ended and then doing a few dishes (which I usually abhor, but is both relaxing and rewarding as a break). Once the Ughly Beast was down on its knees, I was able to abandon the timer and go over 25 minutes and I have been kicking its ass ever since.

Some suggestions for break activities:

• dancing, jumping, throwing air punches
• playing with a musical instrument
• scribbling on a piece of paper
• small housekeeping tasks

Avoid:

• browsing, esp. reddit
• anything that can't be interrupted instantly e.g. reading or watching a video
• anything that may cause an interruption later on or will occupy your mind e.g. beginning to cook
• reddit

If the mere thought of a task is painful, you need preliminary taming of the Ugh field before considering pomodoro. But as always, beware of other-optimizing.

I stopped using Pomodoro after a couple of months because I came to hate the structure. I am now again less productive but happier.

I've been doing a 30 minute cycle that's fixed to the wall clock, the breaks always starts at **:00 and **:30. I have vague notions about training my brain to follow some sort of attention cycle with the fixed timepoints.

It's not possible for me to browse the web for five minutes and then stop, so I just generally stand up, stretch, and go get some water for the break. The half-hour breaks do double duty as ergonomic stretching reminders.

I've known about the Pomodoro technique for some years, but haven't found it consistently awesome. When my productivity was sufficiently bad, the tasks I procrastinated on felt too unpleasant to spend even the 25 minutes on. When productivity is good, I tend to just power through things and ignore the breaks. Enforcing the breaks might serve to sustain long-term performance during a good productivity run.

Someone on Hacker News had the interesting idea that working in 25 minute chunks with breaks in between could serve as training for entering flow quickly and on demand, since you can't futz around setting the mood for 40 minutes before getting into the actual work.

proved to myself that GWT wasn't all that challenging

Beware Stockhom syndrome, now. In such matters, trusting your first impression isn't always wrong.

I feel like this comes close to the definite proof that I should stop paying attention to articles about procrastination on less wrong, because you are all talking about a completely different problem than I have. (Plausible because I'm definitely neurologically weird.)

But just in case: can somebody explain to me how this isn't completely circular? If I knew how to implement the instruction "Work on one thing for that 25 minutes, nothing else." as an atomic action, I wouldn't have a procrastination problem. I notice that I'm confused and I'm not sure that I know what the word "procrastination" commonly refers to anymore.

Interesting, but that doesn't solve one of the main problem I tend to have at work : handling waiting delays. Things like compiling, running tests, restarting an heavy application stack, waiting for workmate answer in an IRC/IM channel, ... that can take a few minutes.

I tend to do "other stuff" (either work related or non-work related) while those delays are running (reading email, checking websites, ...), to avoid wasting the time (and because waiting without doing anything is something I loath). But of course, I start reading email to fill a 1 minute gap, and end up reading/replying email for 5 minutes. And then I check LW to fill a 2 minutes gap, and end up writing a comment for 10 minutes.

So I'm not fully happy with my actual way of doing, but I fear using a method like Pomodoro will be less efficient (because of the wasted "waiting times") and much more frustrating (because not doing anything is really frustrating to me). Anyone has feedback or ideas on how to handle them ?

For math proofs I find 45 minutes works better than 25, and I usually need some time before starting to get mentally prepared, but the principle at least works.

One huge benefit I've found from doing pomodoros even when there are no ugh fields and when I'm sufficiently motivated is that it forces me to stop and take stock of what I'm doing. I'll suddenly notice that I'm hungry, or that I have to go to the bathroom, or that pandora stopped, etc. All of these seemingly minor things often have a huge effect on my productivity. In addition, during the break I occasionally realize that the approach I'm taking to a given problem is all wrong. Breaks allow me to catch these mistakes often hours earlier than otherwise.

GTD and the Pomodoro technique have different aims, I think, and are not mutually exclusive – you could use GTD for keeping track of what to do when, and Pomodoros for actually doing (some) tasks.

Many people also write down the task they want to do next, and put a checkmark next to it after they successfully finished the task. This might be important because it helps to build a chain of successes: http://lifehacker.com/281626/jerry-seinfelds-productivity-secret

Every now and then my "getting things done" mechanism fades away gradually. Then while doing something I shouldn't (such as reading this post) I get a signal telling me "hey, go back to pomodoros". I go back, productive again. And after a while it fades away again.

Seems like to people like me, the best solution is to set random dates in our electronic calendars (cellphone for instance), far ahead in the future, with strong reminders that we shuould be using *productivity thing of your choice here"... so we don't need charitable people like Elharo to tell us what we should have been doing :)

My data point: Tentative "+1" for Pomodoro.

I use Pomodoro, but I don't take breaks (I have a lot of trouble returning to work if I do) - I use the 5 minutes to handle email, etc. The main advantage is it keeps me aware of the passage of time, and helps me pace myself. I am a student who spends most hours of my day studying lecture notes.

I've seen Pomodoro brought up a number of times. Should we put together a survey to tally how many have tried it, and how many have benefited?

After reading an earlier LW post on Pomodoro I downloaded the "Pomodroido" app for my phone a few days ago. I'll have to wait a few months using it to see whether it helps over my previous method (or lack thereof). So far I seem to be adjusting well to it - the standard 25/5 schedule suits me nicely.

When, pray tell, am I supposed to catch up on my correspondence?

I can imagine some abusing this technique for things that add little value to their lives but many feel have to get done, such as dusting their fan blades or making their office as neat (as opposed to efficient) as possible. Also, people who are already lazy may choose simpler tasks when applying this technique, as opposed to mentally draining tasks such as studying or improving set skills. Perhaps their should be an addendum to prioritizing goals that provide value (monetary, personal growth, etc.) within the 25 minute mark.

Downvoted because this post brings pretty much no new information on a technique that has been discussed many times (including in really recent posts). Bad use of Main in my opinion.