I found pomodoro to be great for eating the elephant one bite at a time. If I have a large task or project that just needs time to work on the constituent parts, for me it’s a great way to set up guardrails so I don’t wander into another obscure corner of the internet. Gamifying this kind of work is helpful for me.
this post was submitted on 25 Dec 2024
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ADHD
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I've tried it a few times but so far it made things worse. Knowing there is a timer running just distracts me so much. Like I want to look at it or at least I think about it all the time.
It's a great starting point. Live it, customize it to your needs, internalize it, then discard it like training wheels
When I finish a task, I get up and walk. When I get frustrated, I get up and walk. When I think I've found the answer, I get up and walk. When I realize I'm on the wrong path, I get up and walk
Over learning does nothing but bore me, sometimes a task is so easy I plow through the next one, sometimes a task is too big or I reach a good stopping point and walk to recollect myself. I don't need to think about it anymore
I don't need a timer anymore, my body is a variable timer - time is subjective after all. But I used pompdoro to instill the habit, then I grew beyond it - my version might not work for you, maybe you'll even need the timer - but it's a great technique, so use it, take the good and discard the useless, and adapt it to you over time
It helps me a lot for getting started and staying on task. I used to use the countdown timer with alarm, but now I use Windows stopwatch timer with it set to be always on top so it's near the top right corner. Whenever I get an automatic impulse to open a distraction tab it helps me catch myself. I let it run until I notice I'm over 25 min. Then I decide to break or keep going. If I break, I set it to count up again so I see how much time I've spent on break. This seems to be a decent compromise for flexibility for me.
Never heard of it. Enlighten me please.
25 mins studying, 5 min break.
Repeat 4 times and on the 4th time it's a 35 min break.
Basically forces your brain to cool off and relax between studying time. You retain better over time but it depends on what you're studying.
Never works for me. Sometimes a task just gets less boring and Pomodoro interrupts that. If I super simplify what works for me, I prefer scheduling a task I like after the one I'm struggling to do because I find it boring or stressful. So I keep myself motivated by reminding myself, the next one is fun, I just need to get over the boring one.
Use it for tasks you tend to put off and don't use it for tasks you tend to hyperfocus.
Right now I mostly use it for boring time-consuming chores, otherwise I don't bother.
I will hyperfocus when I am coding at work, so I never use it then
I use it sometimes to make sure I stop a hyperfocus I don't want to have. Of course I generally then ignore the alarm but sometimes it helps!
I’ve found that it destroys my hyperfocus periods, which is the only time I’m actually able to be productive, so I stopped doing it.
I don’t know how people get anything done with constant interruptions. My brain does that enough already.
After mediocre performance at school and undergraduate degree, I started using Pomodoro for my masters and crushed it. It helped significantly by keeping me on task. If you’re interested, I highly recommend you try it and see if it works for you.
Doesn't work for me. The breaks break my focus entirely.
What did work was "if I can study for 20min, I will have studied enough for today." Which sometimes followed with hyperfocus resulting in studying for a time. 20min or 2hours were both victories in my book.
What did work was "if I can study for 20min, I will have studied enough for today."
I've had mixed results with this approach. On one hand, the constant interruptions don't work at all for me. But it's an uphill fight to really feel like that 20 minutes (or whatever) is "enough." I often feel like if I start, I have to finish, or else I risk not picking it back up again. It's frustrating and makes me want to put my head through a wall.
That "I have to finish" only made me more reluctant to start. Was able to drop it by learning how to let go of perfectionism.
It's better to do 20min quality, is better than nothing or 7hours of unfocussed slogging.
Works... sometimes. Could never really follow it, tried different versions of it(50-10, 40-20, 30-10) and results are mixed.
I would say not to focus too much on the timer , get up and walk around if you feel like so, just remember to not touch addictive stuff in the breaktime (Video game, YT, etc....).
The extended approach with fixed intervals and breaks doesn’t work for me, but I’m using a timer to get started on things that I can’t commit to otherwise. It’s mostly initial momentum in my case.
They definitely help me stay on track. I usually spend the 25 minutes on a hyper focus activity that I get lost in and could spend hours on, and the 5 minutes on a painful task like cooking where I wouldn't know where to start and wouldn't begin spontaneously (the 25 minute gap gives me time to plan what to do next, and the 5 minutes of manual work gives me time to check I didn't get sidetracked on the main task)
How long have you been trying it out for?
It may just need tweaking so it fits your goals.
Today was my first day. Gonna keep at it for a while.
Did something similar before being diagnosed and it sucked and I hated it. Too rigid to maintain focus when I actually started to focus, too many interruptions.