[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Alternatives to the Pomodoro technique?
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Ask HN: Alternatives to the Pomodoro technique?
The Pomodoro is the default standard for productivity. It's
certainly concise and low-overhead, but can still be scaled into
elaborate systems. However, I wonder if anyone ever has problems
following it. And if so, what are alternative methods to focused
work and productivity? I've seen only one before- the Flowtime
Technique, which is really just Pomodoro with no preset time blocks
and with flexible breaks. https://medium.com/@UrgentPigeon/the-
flowtime-technique-7685101bd191
Author : Apocryphon
Score : 46 points
Date : 2024-02-12 18:33 UTC (4 hours ago)
| 1123581321 wrote:
| I do something similar to that FlowTime method where I write down
| what I'm working on and add a tally mark every time I'm
| interrupted.
|
| Have you encountered what's called time-block planning or
| hyperscheduling?
|
| There are many of these ideas floating around; I wouldn't say any
| is the standard.
| fuzztester wrote:
| >Have you encountered what's called time-block planning or
| hyperscheduling?
|
| IIRC (I read it a while ago), in his book, Rapid Development,
| Steve McConnell described timeboxing, which may be the same as
| time-block planning, which I had not heard of until now.
| paulgb wrote:
| I wrote an internal Slack bot that my team uses to coordinate
| "deep work sessions". It creates a thread, we say what we plan to
| do for the next 45-90 minutes (the time is up to the person who
| invokes the bot), and then we have an understanding that we will
| all be unreachable for that duration. When it's over, the bot
| prompts everyone to say what they did. It's simple, but I find it
| to be effective at squashing distractions and getting real work
| done.
| thelastparadise wrote:
| This sounds like hell for ICs.
|
| They might play along, but internally I guarantee some of them
| are miserable.
| nequo wrote:
| Why do you think that this would make ICs miserable?
| dirtybirdnj wrote:
| Not the OP but a reminder to "tell me what you did in the
| last 45 mins" is definitely some level of micro-management.
| Daily check ins can be reasonable for a high velocity
| project... every 45 mins seems overkill unless you are war-
| room / disaster response mode.
|
| If a team needs this frequent check ins there is either a
| misalignment of goals via too many cooks (PM/PO) in the
| kitchen, or there is a serious lack of trust in the team
| from the top down.
| paulgb wrote:
| It was modeled after "deep work" sessions I have
| participated in the past (with non-colleagues) where
| saying what I worked on at the end was a useful
| reflection and to get in the habit of not (e.g.) getting
| sucked into responding to an email that came in during
| the session. I can understand the skepticism of it, but
| the value is in writing them not in reading them. It's
| not required and some people don't do it.
| ngokevin wrote:
| I see a lot of people do this voluntarily through online
| services with strangers. Even my neighborhood Facebook group
| was coordinating one of these at a cafe with a lot of
| interest.
| paulgb wrote:
| Yeah, it was modeled after doing an in-person session like
| that and realizing that I liked it. Nobody is forced to do
| it, but by doing it over Slack they are aware that it's
| happening and know to expect not to expect an immediate
| response from those participating.
| ngokevin wrote:
| I was using flow.club for a while and enjoyed it when I
| needed it.
| lukas099 wrote:
| It sounds good to me. I'm sure some would hate it.
| contctlink wrote:
| I use a variant of the Pomodoro technique: instead of having
| strict breaks when the time is over, I just receive a sound
| notification at the end of the focus and the end of the breaks.
|
| Then, every 10 minutes, I get a new notification.
|
| It's a small mod but it changes a lot my perception of the
| technique. It creates a lot less frustration as I can finish the
| task I am working on without losing track of the time passing.
|
| I coded a web version of this variant here: https://focusplus.io
| You can try it, it's 100% free (still in the early days tho)
| modo_ wrote:
| Nice work on this! I love that it has a lightweight backlog
| built in and that I can describe what my current task is.
|
| One small feedback- the motion design is waaay too much. You
| should consider dialing it back 2-3x.
| contctlink wrote:
| Thanks for the feedback!
|
| Yes the idea was to create a tool to help you go through your
| day, not something super complex (we all already have our
| systems in place)
|
| Gotcha for the motion, I'll reduce it a bit :)
| oDot wrote:
| I follow my own "Spontaneous Productivity":
|
| https://blog.nestful.app/spontaneous-productivity/
|
| In short: Almost nothing is scheduled. The "what do to" is
| decided upon at the moment of doing. Defining granular enough
| tasks is a valid replacement to Pomodoro.
|
| This means a tool that always tells you "what's next" is needed,
| which is why I built https://Nestful.app.
|
| Nestful is undergoing heavy refactoring this month, and while
| data is safe and stable, features and bugs are not. If you like
| the idea but find the instability troubling, send a support
| request mentioning this and I'll waive a couple of months of
| payment.
| beretguy wrote:
| I just take a break when I get tired. The break is as long as I
| feel like it.
| mrspuratic wrote:
| This. And in summertime I go tend to the tomato plants in my
| greenhouse, so I refer to it as my pomodoro technique.
| fuzztester wrote:
| Have you tried Pomodoro yourself and found issues with it?
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| >I wonder if anyone ever has problems following it
|
| Pomo is best for people who have trouble staying on-task. You see
| the countdown in the corner of your screen and focusing isnt so
| bad because you have a specific end-time. But, in my experience
| it only works well if you are the sort who doesn't get a lot of
| interruptions.
|
| I use a printout system (Emergent Task Planner) plus Clockify to
| help track the real time spent on each task. It works ok and my
| time is billable so accurate timekeeping is a must.
|
| https://davidseah.com/node/the-emergent-task-planner/
|
| eta: i also keep an analog clock on my desk. I didn't bookmark it
| but sometime ago I read a piece on here about how digital clocks
| aren't good for measuring the passage of time and I think there
| really is something to it.
| tamiral wrote:
| I've never heard of this before, but it is amazing... i've
| built out something like this for myself after reading a lot of
| self help books, i love the idea of an analog clock!
| Nzen wrote:
| What counts as an alternative ?
|
| Does Seah's Emergent Task Planning [0] count ? It involves
| choosing a couple of tasks for the day, blocking them out, but
| allowing and recording interruptions.
|
| [0] https://davidseah.com/node/the-emergent-task-planner/
|
| Does Allen's Getting Things Done count ? It involves sorting work
| at milestones (weekly, monthly), and doing each for some
| reasonable amount of time, chosen by the doer. Anything that
| takes five minutes or less, should be done immediately.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36139432
|
| Does the Montessori method of teaching [2] count ? It seems to
| involve the student learner engaging with a single chosen subject
| for several hours at a time.
|
| [2] https://montessorifortoday.com/what-is-the-montessori-
| teachi...
|
| Do the dicta 'do something until you are bored', 'perservere
| until you are exhausted', and 'multitasking is okay' count ?
|
| I am of the impression that productivity strategies are just
| frameworks for thought. Each, with or without a formal Author's
| name attached, is just somewhere on the spectrum/surface of
| counting some work as more or less worthy of focus with
| heuristics for 'focus can last a some amount of time'.
| bun_terminator wrote:
| Pomodoro always felt so strange to me. If I could just "start"
| things on command, I wouldn't need any of these special
| techniques in the first place. And if I do work, I absolutely
| don't want to stop, and certainly not because a clock tells me
| so. It's like the perfect antipattern to destroy any productivity
| in me. Not hating, just puzzled by it.
| notso411 wrote:
| Reminds me of where I used to work everything was a "technique"
| or a "practice" or a "theorem". Just... work.
| FaridIO wrote:
| This is exactly how I feel about it. I'm sure there are some
| tasks it works really well for, but I have yet to encounter
| one.
| willsmith72 wrote:
| I find it extremely useful. It's a reminder to take breaks and
| keeps me focused. I don't use it all day every day.
|
| Some days when I don't use it I end up working for many hours
| without a break, and my productivity would've been higher with
| regular breaks. I also find myself drifting to tasks which seem
| important but aren't, like a random refactor. Pomo helps me be
| conscious every half hour about what I want to work on
|
| If you don't have those problems, it probably won't offer you
| anything
| coldblues wrote:
| I recommend FocusMate. You are forced to work by the social
| pressure of having someone else on the other end work alongside
| you.
| contctlink wrote:
| What do you mean by social pressure ?
| willmacdonald wrote:
| Thanks for mentioning FocusMate! I used it many years ago,
| but had since forgotten it's name. No amount of googling
| found it.
| eggdaft wrote:
| Aside: this is exactly the kind of query that ChatGPT is so
| good at. If you haven't tried "I'm trying to remember the
| name of this thing..." please could you see if it works?
| chrchr wrote:
| The part of pomodoro that's supposed to help you start is the
| limited time period. Many people find it much easier to
| undertake something if they know it's only for 25 minutes. If
| 25 minutes still seems daunting, by all means pick a lower
| number.
| itronitron wrote:
| This is why I have never even considered pomodoro. Only being
| able to work on something for 25 minutes for me means it's
| not worth starting in the first place.
| egypturnash wrote:
| The idea's not that you're done for good when the 25min are
| up. You just take a break. Then you come back to it for
| another 25min. Maybe you do this for the entire day, maybe
| you do this a couple times for an entire week. Or longer,
| I've had projects that stretch over a couple of years, that
| I rarely spent more than 1-3 hours of any particular day
| on.
|
| In practice I'll happily ignore the "take a 5 min break"
| part of the Pomodoro method but I definitely take real
| breaks every hour or two.
| RandallBrown wrote:
| I don't think there's any reason you can't just continue
| the task you've been working on.
| tetha wrote:
| For me the hardest part is actually getting started.
|
| And as I notice, my problem at times is that my tasks are like
| "You are a Roman General. You have 3 Legions. Conquer Europe
| north of this line."
|
| For me personally, it's better to have a task like "Alternate
| pick the A-Minor scale on the bass 2 times up and down at
| 120bpm". Easy and simple to do I'd say. And then you realize
| that other thing. And then that other thing. And then you watch
| some Vids from Ola, Bernth, Glenn. And suddenly you've noodled
| 2 hours on the guitar.
| TheHideout wrote:
| There is this idea of thinking fast and slow aka the hare brain
| and tortoise mind. I use the active time for the hare (fast
| thinking), and the break time for the tortoise to pass up ideas
| from the subconscious (slow thinking).
|
| I've been using pomodoro for many years. Not continuously
| though because I find that my productivity level is extremely
| high while doing it and I start to get burned out because the
| intermittent breaks are not enough.
|
| You might be interested in something called the domino
| technique to help with getting started / getting into flow.
| Basically you do something that is difficult but short that you
| can do to get a meaningful psychological "win" in a short
| period of time (5 minutes) to kick start your motivation /
| flow. I would post a link but I don't have a good reference on
| hand.
| dkarl wrote:
| > If I could just "start" things on command, I wouldn't need
| any of these special techniques in the first place
|
| For me, it's the opposite. This is one of my favorite things
| about doing pomodoros.
|
| I hate to be the tactibro who sources inspirational quotes from
| special forces influencers, but I worked with a guy who
| introduced me to the phrase "go before you're ready," and I
| really took it to heart as a check against my natural tendency
| to leave problems alone and wait for them to get easier. I got
| this tendency from studying math in school, where I fell in
| love with the magic of getting stuck on a hard problem, putting
| it aside, and having the solution come to me hours later while
| I was thinking about something else.
|
| That approach works when my subconscious has everything it
| needs to work on the problem, like when writing proofs for a
| math class, but at my job I'm usually working in a different
| way, where the solution depends on concrete details that I'm in
| the process of learning, such as a new part of a codebase, a
| new library, a new API, etc. I can't delegate that kind of work
| to my subconscious, because my subconscious isn't going to read
| documentation and write exploratory code. But my brain keeps
| whispering, "You're stuck. Take a break."
|
| Because of this, I love the "go before you're ready" aspect of
| doing Pomodoros.
| kristiandupont wrote:
| Hah, that's exactly what I do, I can see that clearly now but
| I hadn't articulated it. Thank you!
| hinkley wrote:
| The brain likes to defend itself, and it likes symmetry. It's
| just as likely that the reason you hate stopping is because
| your subconscious is trying to protect you from the minor
| catastrophe that is starting back up again.
|
| People used to being interrupted either get nothing done or
| weave practices into their routine that help them remember
| where they left off. Used to be when I was young and an
| enthusiastic proponent of Flow state (neither of which are true
| anymore), I would pretty confidently pull on threads until I
| had six or seven things on my todo list, and manage to almost
| always remember all of them.
|
| But these are moderately large rewrites pretending to be
| refactoring by misusing the tools and ignoring the goals and
| values. So these days I tend to use that mental model to do
| more reading and trying to get closer to the crux of the issue
| instead of starting to type and hoping for my brain to catch up
| with my fingers within a few dozen lines of code, which isn't
| happening if we've arrived at the adjective "large".
|
| I haven't articulated this before so I don't really have a
| handy list of all of the tools and tricks I utilize for this,
| but I can say that conditional breakpoints are one of the ways
| I augment that memory. Even if I get pulled off into a
| production issue, these breakpoints are a much better reminder
| of what I was thinking about than a simple breakpoint.
| turnsout wrote:
| I used to do a version of Pomodoro quite often. Now I find I get
| better results by turning off WiFi.
| lukas099 wrote:
| Work 2hr, break 1hr. Repeat as needed. That's what works for me
| personally.
|
| I suspect everyone has a different rhythm, or lack thereof.
| contctlink wrote:
| break 1 hrs !
| lukas099 wrote:
| Yeah I work from 6am-5pm. I do other productive things during
| the breaks, though.
| wouldbecouldbe wrote:
| Timeboxing creates a lot of peace for me.
|
| Lately been so busy that's it hard to get focus, I've been
| breaking up the day into 1 & 2 hour blocks.
|
| Gives me a pass to forget the rest and just focus on that item
| and the rest has it's own designated time.
|
| Of course doesn't always go right or work, but going back to it
| makes me understand where I have room & when I can relax.
|
| Also different from todo, since focus is not on finishing tasks.
| Arubis wrote:
| https://www.indiehackers.com/post/plan-do-learn-my-somewhat-...
|
| https://www.ultraworking.com/twg went out of business, but see if
| you can dig up their template.
|
| Cal Newport on time blocking: https://calnewport.com/deep-habits-
| the-importance-of-plannin...
| jawon wrote:
| I do something similar to Flowtime but without the bookkeeping:
| Orodomops.
|
| Set a stopwatch going but out of sight. When you run out of steam
| check it. If it's been less than 25 minutes keep going. If
| greater, have a break scaled to the time you worked.
|
| I started doing this because I couldn't get on board with
| breaking up the work I enjoyed doing, but I recognized the
| utility of having breaks when that wasn't the case.
| vavooom wrote:
| Yes I use a similar method with Flowtime myself. Helps to track
| my study time and benchmark how many hours certain classes I am
| taking for grad school actually consume.
| g0ld2k wrote:
| This is very similar to my flow. I start a 25 minute timer, and
| work for at least that amount of time, if I get interrupted
| during that first 25 minutes I count that as an interruption
| (which I tally). From there I count the number of 25 minute
| blocks I work, which include any rolling timers (25 minute
| blocks after the first 25 minutes).
|
| I did this on paper for a few months and eventually turned it
| into an app called Contadino for macOS, iOS, watchOS, and
| visionOS
| (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/contadino/id1672167389).
| gituliar wrote:
| I gave pomodoro a try years ago, but failed. It simply doesn't
| fit my personality, don't like deadlines and time pressure.
|
| Instead, I put my tasks in a Moleskine notebook, mixed with other
| notes and ideas of mine. In front of each task I put a square
| box, to be checked when the task is completed in the future.
| Usually tasks are 1-2 hours long, they are for evenings, longer
| tasks are for weekends. It's crucial to keep tasks small, no
| longer than 1 day of work, so split big tasks into small. This is
| crucial, as abstract tasks lead to procrastination and make you
| lose focus. The checkbox gives satisfaction when done and remains
| in the notebook, so that you can see a lot of completed by
| reviewing your notes.
|
| I use this technique for 3 years now and it works for me. Not
| sure if it's known by other name as I came to it myself.
| Hopefully, this can be useful for others as well.
| contctlink wrote:
| It's 2 different things to have a to-do list and use the
| Pomodoro technique.
|
| The first one is made to plan your day and clear your mind,
| whereas the latter is made to help you go through that list
| while being as productive as possible.
|
| You can totally use both
| gituliar wrote:
| > You can totally use both
|
| Definitely, some can use both.
|
| Again, it very much depends on the persona. All I need to be
| productive is a clear to-do list and no destruction, to focus
| on my work. No extra techniques, like Pomodoro, is necessary
| in my case.
| d1sxeyes wrote:
| Sounds a lot like bullet journaling.
|
| If you can get past the washi tape and calligraphy brigade, and
| sprinkle a few reviews/mid-term plans, it's actually pretty
| effective (at least I have found it so).
| gwbas1c wrote:
| I was really disturbed one day when the Asana desktop app updated
| and it put a giant "pomodoro" window on top of my screen. I
| almost uninstalled Asana because of it.
|
| Anyway, work that requires focus should have natural rhythms:
| There's things that need to stay in my head, and if I get
| interrupted it's very hard to find my place. So I work without
| stop (except to pee) while these things are in my head, and I
| take a break once I finish enough that I can "forget" what's in
| my head.
|
| It's something you'll understand if you've ever written
| complicated programs, or had to do something that requires
| intense concentration.
|
| For example: I had to tweak a server-side Blazor application to
| deny access in a certain situation. Last Friday I did it in the
| UI, but that's not a good solution because there's ways to
| accidentally bypass the UI. The right way to deny access is in
| the Middleware, but I didn't have a lot of experience working
| with ASP Middleware. Thus, I couldn't start working with the
| Middleware in the last few minutes of the day (too much to
| learn).
|
| I spent about 90 minutes this morning learning how to hook into
| ASP's middleware so I could deny access to the application. Once
| I learned how to do that, I ate lunch. After lunch, I closed all
| the browser windows that had the documentation for Middleware and
| wrote the error page. Now that I opened the PR, I'm taking a
| break on Hacker News.
|
| Trying to fit that into a timer is impossible: If the timer went
| off while I was trying to figure out how to work with the
| Middleware, I'd have to re-read a lot of the stuff to get back
| into the puzzle.
| JohnAaronNelson wrote:
| Don't knock it till you try it. I was originally of a similar
| impression upon discovering the technique.
|
| The breaks are not so you stop thinking about what you're
| doing. They're to take you away from it. I continue to think
| during my breaks about what I'm doing.. I am just not allowed
| to do it.
|
| It allows me to step back from what I'm doing and re-evaluate
| if what I'm doing at this very moment is what I should be
| doing. Otherwise, it's easy to get stuck just wanting to finish
| what you're doin
|
| It also does allow me to stop thinking about what I'm doing,
| for a brief moment, while leaving the train of through intact
| in the subconscious.
|
| Typically, when someone loses their train of thought because of
| distractions, it is because they have to switch what they're
| focused on. The train gets derailed because it has to go along
| another track. Pomodoro breaks are more like stopping the train
| to look around than switching tracks.
|
| Furthermore, removing distractions and staying in your train of
| thought is what the technique is fundamentally all about. Once
| you start the technique, you'll notice that the requirement
| that you keep track of your distractions, allows you to focus
| on ridding yourself of distractions first and foremost. Once
| you have found a way to rid yourself of distractions, every
| moment of those 25 minutes becomes precious, your mind
| sharpens, and solutions become clear.
|
| The breaks allow you to dis-engage, providing greater focus and
| clarity.
| sesm wrote:
| Gave up classic Pomodoro technique many years ago, but recently
| I've returned to it by listening to 'Pomodoro streamers' on
| Twitch. Idea is simple: the host starts/stops the timer on
| stream, works during work session and chats with audience during
| breaks. You don't have to follow the schedule strictly, but after
| a couple of rounds you get into the rhythm. As a plus, instead of
| mechanical timer you have a choice of background music and
| streamer persona.
|
| As for managing distractions, I use self-messages in Telegram as
| an inbox for any spontaneous ideas.
| thimp wrote:
| I don't know why people obsess about ritualising this stuff. Just
| have a todo list and put dates on stuff and train yourself to
| pick up tasks off it properly. I'm just using Apple Reminders. Is
| on my phone and mac. Works with Siri.
|
| It's fine to stop doing things. It's fine to procrastinate
| sometimes. Sometimes you need a time out on schedule. Forcing
| yourself to be productive leads to crap. Give yourself a break :)
| lukas099 wrote:
| That works for you and that is great. Other things work for
| other people.
| bowsamic wrote:
| In my experience pomodoros are usually best for things like
| revision and mundane studying. If you need it for your normal
| work then it's probably more of a psychological issue either
| internally arising or based on problems in the environment
| 331c8c71 wrote:
| I fill a daily page of rocketbook planner as the day goes by (and
| in the morning).
|
| I almost never revisit the scans of these pages I fill daily (but
| i take dedicated separate notes when needed). Using the planner
| helps me to track time and to be productive as the day unfolds so
| the purpose is very much the same as the pomodoro.
|
| For me it works much better than pomodoro which is imo too much
| about micromanaging productivity and too little about the big
| picture (which matters the most in the end of the day).
| throwuwu wrote:
| Pomodoro never worked for me since I work best when I get into
| flow and keep going for 1 to 4 hours. What I have found helps is
| planning as much as possible up front and dedicating time to do
| so. I braindump everything then when that's exhausted I rewrite
| it in a structured way and add detail, breaking it up into
| sections and gathering resources I need, then I make an
| exhaustive todo list of tiny steps in chronological order and I
| mean really tiny steps with concrete outcomes. Then when I start
| working I just follow the plan and since I'm very familiar with
| it by this point I don't have to refer back to it all the time
| but I do make sure to check it in order to stay on track usually
| when I reach a point where I'm uncertain of what to do next. I
| also add to the document when necessary.
| ParetoOptimal wrote:
| https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/RWu8eZqbwgB9zaerh/third-time...
|
| I used this to follow it in emacs before:
|
| https://git.sr.ht/~swflint/third-time
|
| However this one I haven't used looks more featureful:
|
| https://github.com/SqrtMinusOne/pomm.el
| egypturnash wrote:
| I just use a slacker version of Pomodoro.
|
| First: in the morning, I decide what things I would like to try
| do today, and make some checkboxes in my notebook - some of these
| are boxes representing a half hour of work on a larger project,
| some of these are boxes representing shopping lists, I know which
| is which. Unlike the Pomodoro method I am _not_ deciding exactly
| what I am going to do today, so it 's okay if I have several more
| half-hour boxes than I know I can complete in a day.
|
| Second: I do things. I don't pull out the timer, I just do
| things, and take breaks between them. The time I spent originally
| using the timer developed a pretty decent sense for a half hour
| of work, so I'll often find myself saying "how long have I been
| working on this project" and checking Time Sink's window at
| around a half an hour. Maybe I'll get up and take a serious
| break, maybe I'll blow it off. At some point I'll probably be
| climbing on my bike to go between my home and the various
| cafes/parks I work in so I've got a decent amount of "get off my
| ass and focus on something further than 4' away" built into my
| life.
|
| I'll check off time blocks in the notebook as I get a chance. I
| also keep running time track charts in my working files, I'm an
| artist and it's nice to pull up a finished piece months later and
| say "this took me 5h spread out over a week" when thinking about
| future prices, or to look at the time spent on a half-finished
| piece and think about how much more time I have on the clock
| before (agreed-upon price)/(hours worked) drops too low, and
| maybe stop obsessing over an area that's acceptable but not great
| to go make sure every other part of the piece is going to be
| acceptable before I run out of time.
|
| Third: repeat every work day for the rest of your life.
|
| This works for me as a freelance artist. Sometimes I get sick and
| don't do this. Sometimes I get depressed and don't do this.
| Sometimes if I've stopped doing this for a while I'll take out
| the physical timer and start doing a more serious Pomodoro
| Routine to kind of reset myself. But really as a general rule I
| don't need the whole formal procedure.
| ltadeut wrote:
| None.
|
| Just schedule the work you need to do and have some standards for
| yourself and keep working on it.
|
| If you feel tired after a while you can train yourself to push
| through it if you really want to. Anyone who's ever run, lifted
| weights, done martial arts, etc, will tell you your real limit is
| well beyond your feelings.
|
| If you're still tired, take a break, get a tea or a coffee and
| just go back to work.
|
| The secret to get work done is to just sit down and do the work.
| Get used to being bored.
| mklepaczewski wrote:
| It depends on your issues with productivity. No method works for
| all people. Can you describe why you're not satisfied with your
| level of productivity? What are your top 3 issues? It will be
| easier to recommend something.
|
| If you want to test one method that works well and can be tested
| in literally minutes, try body doubling. It boils down to working
| in the presence of another person - preferably a stranger or
| someone with authority. It's a strange effect, but it works
| surprisingly well for some of the hardest procrastinators. You
| can try it online here: - https://workmode.net/ - if you want to
| use this method for work, or you suffer from social anxiety, -
| https://www.focus101.com/ - the community is pretty small, which
| might be a good thing if you like to feel cozy, -
| https://www.focusmate.com/ - the largest body-doubling portal.
|
| Disclaimer: I'm a co-founder of WorkMode.net
| paulcole wrote:
| > The Pomodoro is the default standard for productivity.
|
| According to who?
|
| > what are alternative methods to focused work and productivity?
|
| Set aside time at the beginning of your day to make a list of the
| things you want to do, prioritize that list and then do them.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Work-Clean-life-changing-mise-en-plac...
|
| This book helped me quite a bit.
| garrickvanburen wrote:
| What's the problem you're trying to solve w/ Pomodoro?
|
| As I understand, Pomodoro's purpose is to incrementally train you
| to stay on task for longer and longer durations.
|
| Is that not working for you or do you have a different goal?
|
| "The only technology that you need is deadlines" - Paul Ford
| https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2023/deadlines-as-technology/
| eclectic29 wrote:
| Did you try it? Did it work for you? I would first try it before
| looking for alternatives. This is what is called analysis-
| paralysis. You're simply wasting your precious time looking for
| alternatives without even giving it a shot.
| mharig wrote:
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hvk_XylEmLo&pp=ygUgd29ya2luZyB...
|
| But apart from that, I personally need often 1 hour minimum to
| dive deeply into a problem and spend a considerable amount of
| time to begin or continue to solve it. I do not think that the
| pomodoro technique is apropriate for me.
| launchiterate wrote:
| find your calling
| al_borland wrote:
| I am not a pomodoro fan. I'm not a robot, so starting a task is
| the hardest part, continuing once I'm in a flow state is
| effortless. My most enjoyable days at work are ones where I'm
| left alone to work on something, I start, and just keep going.
| Some days I forget to eat lunch, and I usually end up naturally
| coming out of it after about 7 hours, but if it's a good problem
| and I'm making progress it can go longer. If I do stop to go to
| the bathroom or eat, I don't mentally disconnect from what I was
| working on, I stay in it and think about what I was trying to
| solve, so I can jump right back into it.
|
| On these days I start once, and never have to overcome that
| barrier again. If I was using pomodoro, I'd have to overcome that
| barrier 16 times, and lose time/energy to having to restart and
| remember what I was doing. Meetings and messages from people are
| bad enough for interruptions, I don't need to manufacture extra
| ones.
|
| Sadly, due to excessive meetings, these days are rare, but when
| they happen I get so much done and feel so good afterward.
| Although sometimes my brain has this weird tingling sensation
| afterward. I'm not sure what to make of that.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| I've started using the "NOW/LATER" feature of Logseq. It
| automatically starts a timer when I change a to-do item to 'NOW',
| that kind of keeps me in the headspace that I should remain on
| task. If I want to stop doing the task I have to alt-tab back
| over to logseq and admit to myself that I'm not working on it
| anymore, lest my timetracking include the minutes of me screwing
| around on HN, which, now that I think of it...
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