I have tried quite a few Pomodoro app and they are all good. Remember, it is OK to find your own time-break cycle and not stick to the standard Pomodoro. I'm more comfortable with a 50-10 cycle (50-min, then 10 for break). I don't care about the Pomodoro count or how many per day.
If you are working at home, I found that cheap mechanical kitchen timers are great. These days, I'm experimenting with an oversize hourglass. It makes no noise and no indication that it ended. However, the beauty I found is that if I didn't see the sand all over from the upper section, then I might been in a zone. When my mind gets back to distraction or normalize and see that the sand is over, I just walk around, have tea and get back to the next.
I really like this idea. It does seem odd to stop working if you're in the zone just because some timer went off. Better for the timer to be a minimum, rather than a hard maximum.
“The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what will happen next. If you do that every day when you are writing a novel you will never be stuck. That is the most valuable thing I can tell you so try to remember it.”
It depends on what you want to achieve. If you just want to hit focus then setting a 15 minute timer and ignoring it will likely do it. I find significant value in the breaks - I use them to take a walk/grab coffee for my desk, and feel that those regular little breaks are enough that I can keep the pace for an entire day, day on day.
The breaks are really the key. At first it might seem wrong to stop when in the middle of something, but making a habit of jotting down a quick status note when the time is up makes it possible to pick up the threads again for the next round. A 5 minute break won't completely break a train of thought, but it will push it to a different cognitive level. Often the result is better than pushing through on the same problem without stopping.
On the rare occasion I'm genuinely in deep flow, I can ignore the timer, but I don't do that very often. The rest time – proper, deliberate, undistracted rest – improves overall focus and productivity. https://maxfrenzel.medium.com/in-praise-of-deep-work-full-di...
Totally agree. I apply this to my end of day too - leaving myself a solved task with an easy entry point to start with makes it easy to continue that productivity between days even.
When I turn over the hourglass my mantra is "this hour shall pass". A reminder to myself that I have this time to work; sometimes I dread the work ahead, and am reminded that the work will eventually pass, and sometimes I cherish the work ahead, and am reminded that my time to enjoy it shall pass.
I like that the hourglass cannot be reset, you turn it and sand flows, the sand cannot be reset with the push of a button. The hour passes whether you get distracted or not, no starting over.
From my experience, the key feature for a pomodoro timer is that breaks should start automatically, whereas the next pomodoro should not. This way, even if you took a 6 minute break, you can have the full pomodoro. Plus, I prefer starting the focused work with a deliberate action (click).
Quite a lot of timers I tried, however, cannot do that. Great that this is possible here (settings)!
Why should either one start automatically? The one I'm using is manual in both cases, and that seems fine to me. Sometimes if I'm in the middle of something I go longer. That's good by me, as for me pomodoros are more about overcoming resistance to starting/continuing.
Some folks seem to think the benefit of pomos is the focus time. When I used them, it was the breaks. Stopping every twenty five minutes and asking "is this the right thing to be doing now" was invaluable.
For me, it has been easier to have uninterrupted focus time when I know that "in X minutes, I can address that notification." Without the preset breaks, a notification begged to be looked at because when else might it get addressed?
I don't really understand Pomodoro. When I'm at work, I'm constantly confronted by things not working (the dev environment) and using tools others wrote in an ad-hoc way. Any focus time is almost half spent diagnosing issues with the software. I don't do any deep work, because I spend my time writing tests (thanks boss!) and then getting those tests to work. It just feels so unfulfilling, that I don't want to sit there for three minutes to wait for the tests to compile doing nothing, I'd rather at least browse HN.
The best option is make the tests truly fast. The less good option is interlacing two independently testable but closely related tasks. The mind killer is anything else.
Stopping exactly when it says is key for me, it's easier to go back to something that is in progress rather than returning to something that isn't already in my mind.
I also prefer a physical timer, there is something nice about it being a separate tangible item that's not a window on the very work space that I'm using.
I use this daily even as I myself am making my own Pomodoro style app, it's a case of me procrastinating shipping my product so I tearfully use someone else's instead in the meantime (there's a good blog post about this by Kitze, with HN discussion [0]). My product [1] basically solves a lot of the issues I have with regular pomodoro timers, such as that the work and break times are rigid between tasks and you can't add or subtract time; that you can't export the times as a PDF or CSV to send to clients if you're freelancing and billing by the hour; that you can't organize tasks in a calendar-like format, et cetera.
But until I build that, I'll have to continue using Pomofocus. It has a great free plan, I wonder how much money the founder makes from a B2C product.
Also, something I learned recently was that Pomodoro is trademarked, which is why you see most timers riffing on the name otherwise calling it something else.
I know that some people swear by Pomodoro, but personally when I get in the "zone" for doing something, I find that taking a break, however small it may be, ruins my focus.
I find the main benefit is to actually start working on jobs that are necessary but unpleasant. For this I do a 15 mins work / 5 mins break. I tell myself "only 15 minutes, then a break". Then I can actually convince myself to start the unpleasant task, as I know I have an "out". It's a bit of a mind hack.
I find that it’s often helpful to break focus. Sometimes you can get so deep and involved in a problem that tunnel vision starts blocking you from seeing better solutions. Or, you can have a good several hours of focus but ruin yourself for the next day or so by neglecting your smaller admin tasks or your body. As others in this thread have said, the key is finding your personal best ratio of focus vs breaks.
I find that it varies between tasks, e.g. if I’m executing on a pre-designed dev plan I might give myself a 2-hour timer to really dig in. But if I’m brainstorming possible methods to solve a problem I’ll give myself 30 min at a time to make sure I don’t get sucked too far into any one rabbithole (plus those breaks trigger some lovely epiphanies). Or for mindless admin tasks it helps to just set 10 min of focus time so I’m not overwhelmed.
I'll likely get judged for this, but I'm using a paid proprietary Windows Application (w/browser extensions) called "Cold Turkey" (no association, just a customer). It has Pomodoro Timers, but they're enforced, meaning you can blacklist out certain applications or websites during your "work" blocks and allow them during your free time. I'm doing 20/20 during the work-day, with an hour off for lunch.
I'll say this about that specific application: You can tell whoever created it, created it for themselves. What I mean by that is that they really gave a lot of thought into how people may try and disable or bypass it. For example there're different ways to lock your own rules, to stop you trying to remove your favorite website during the middle of a work-day.
As I said I'll get judged, but truthfully a lot of bad habits can use a helping hand to break. People just don't take social media (Reddit, HN, YouTube, et al) seriously as a potentially addictive habit.
PS - I won't link it since this already reads like an advert. It costs $40, the free version I don't consider useful and doesn't support Pomodoro Timers. Their privacy policy is legit, and the software outside of updates is offline.
Note that HN has a small amount of procrastination-blocking built-in. It's the "noprocrast" setting in your user profile.
"If you turn it on you'll only be allowed to visit the site for maxvisit minutes at a time, with gaps of minaway minutes in between. The defaults are 20 and 180, which would let you view the site for 20 minutes at a time, and then not allow you back in for 3 hours."
I've used that before, and it is useful. The thing I didn't love is that it makes no distinction between my free time and work time. Meaning on the evenings or weekends, I'd have the same restrictions as my 9-5 Monday-Friday.
Having used Cold Turkey before, I can confirm that it's really good at doing what it set out to do (though I have a few annoyances with it, since there are a few things it doesn't allow me to do). What's impressive about it is that it is quite difficult to bypass it, and all of the naive approaches just won't work (eg. uninstalling it or switching to a different account).
I wish there were a Linux equivalent of it, but nowadays I don't need it as much as before anyway—I'm not sure if that's complacency, or if I just got better at focusing.
A similar Mac version of this is HeyFocus - https://heyfocus.com
It is paid but it really gets the job done. I don't really use it these days (kinda built up the habit). I remember setting the quotes to just one phrase -- "Get the F*K back to Work" or something like that or was it like "You ought to be Working" (as seen in the ceiling of Kevin Bacon in Hollow Man.
I’ve set up a PI Hole at work with blocklist of social media, YT and similar sites exactly for that. Whenever I want to check any of them I need to go to PI Hole admin site, log in and disable blocking. Having to do that is in 90% cases enough to stop me from procrastinating. When I really need it for work, these few more steps don’t make a difference.
Why would anyone judge you? I used to use CT as well, over time I realized I needed it less and less so its job was done for me, nevertheless it trained my focus well. The founder is great too, I accidentally bought an extra copy back around ten years ago and the founder reimbursed me nearly immediately after I caught the error and emailed them.
I am a fan of physical hour glasses and have a little collection from a 3min egg timer up to 1.5hrs to do sprint blocks. Been doing that since before I had heard of Pomodoro outside of Italian food. Call me old school but I like the intersection of Skeuomorphic and Tangible user Interfaces and if there was an hourglass with a Bluetooth link into my App world you can bet I'd jump on it.
Maybe this is a good time to ask. Have you found Pomodoro to be good for coding?
When I get into the flow I completely lose track of time, and find the 5 minutes interruption every 25 minutes annoying. And then, during the break, I either can't get my thoughts off the problem at hand, or I do and then it's more effort to get back to the task.
I give myself full permission to skip the timer when I’m in the zone. Pomodoro is brilliant for me when I’m not personally motivated to get a thing done, like chores or other things that have to be done but that I’m not excited about.
Nice work! This is very visually pleasing and I think the addition of light task management w/ optional estimates is great!
In general though, does anyone else feel like using a pomodoro timer ruins any chance at intense focus during the workday? I don't doubt the effectiveness for others, but personally, it feels like taking frequent breaks from work lowers my overall productivity because I'm leaving and entering focus so often. This is also the reason I don't like taking walks in the middle of the workday, unless I'm working on a problem that needs more thought than action. The days that I stay in-focus for the full work day are usually my happiest and most productive.
From my experience, it's useful when I'm not able to concentrate on a specific task. The feeling of blocking time for a specific task is helpful for my mind to fully focus n that.
Anyway, 25 minutes is just the standard but you can use longer periods. For example, I use blocks os 1 hour where I block all my distractions, knowing that this time is just for that specific duty.
> does anyone else feel like using a pomodoro timer ruins any chance at intense focus during the workday
You don't have to use it for projects where you're naturally in flow and can maintain intense focus without productivity tools.
The Pomodoro Technique is for those who /get out of flow/ easily and can't be productive without taking breaks often.
I've used it, and it was for tasks where I was able to hold the state of a program's structure even when AFK for ten minutes. I've noticed lethargy and fatigue sets in every 10 minutes, since I'm usually chaired and my wrists have mild RSI which needs to be repaired via breaks.
There is a law of diminishing returns the longer you are stationed at a desk doing focused work. Your boss might not like all your breaks, but you can calmly explain 'It's science!' to them.
It's hard to stay in-focus for 8 hours without amphetamines. I find that I have to eat and pee and stretch now and again.
But I've had trouble with 25 minutes being a bit too short for some more technical tasks. Is there any literature about optimal work durations for highly abstract tasks? Programming architecture, super complicated mechanical cad, some physics or math calculations...
It takes a long time to load the model into your working memory, so restarting a lot is very painful. Is it better to actually follow the pomodoro model and do 25/5? Or is 50/5 more productive? Maybe 50/10 or 40/5? A few professions get the autonomy to control their work at that level of granularity, and we'd love more guidance than "do what works best for you, bb."
I prefer The Flow App for the Mac/iOS, for its the simplicity (yet just enough features) and lite on resources. https://flowapp.info Great customer support as well.
I'm spending my pomodoro break on HN right now! I use the Focus To Do app on my Mac and Android phone. It's a combo to-do list app and pomodoro app. The mobile and desktop apps sync.
The feature I like most is creating recurring tasks on diff schedules. When you mark the task done, it creates a new task with a due date set on the task's schedule. Examples:
Change toothbrush head - 3 months
I also like crossing stuff off the list on the mobile app.
It has whitenoise for when the pomodoro timer is going!
Leet Code - 1 month
Smoke Detector Batteries - 6 months
Slightly tangential, I've tried using various Pomodoro apps on iOS, and none of them seem to be able to alert me when the phone has turned the screen off. Is this an iOS restriction? I can imagine that apps are restricted when not in focus, and even more so if the phone is not being used at all. The only app that can raise an alert is the built in iOS timer, which honestly does 95% of the job, so I use that instead.
Wow this is great timing. I've started doing pomodoro more and was looking for a decent app to use. I settled on https://github.com/ivoronin/TomatoBar for Mac since it's simple and open source. It doesn't have the option to show how many you did in a day which I would like so I'll give the one you shared a try.
I use the free Powerpom app on the Windows Store. One of the key things for me when using a Pomodoro timer is... If I say I'm working on something for an hour, than anytime I get distracted, go to the bathroom, get a drink of water, I stop it.
If an "hour" of work actually takes me an hour to complete as opposed to an hour and 15 of real time, than it's a good day.
I've been using iOS's built in timer that stops whatever is playing in x min as a custom "pomodoro". Music helps me get into flow state and later when it is time for me to take a break, it stops playing to gently remind me. Unlike alarms, it doesn't break my flow state. Afterwards I write down how long I've worked.
Good! Some newfound friends and I made one of these a long time ago for the Odin Project. I prefer our circular length bar. Ours also has a lot more bugs than yours. =D
There is a good global pomodoro timer for working and chating with others. Every 30 minutes a global pomodoro starts. The design is also clean and minimalist.
https://pomodorr.io
I think the idea of chatting during a Pomodor session is strange, but I do appreciate the opportunity to work with friends and the social accountability it provides. I believe it would be beneficial if the service offered private rooms. Additionally, it would be great if there was a built-in feature for users to give positive feedback, such as a 'like' button.
I'm a fan of the pomodoro method, although always found 25 minute cycle to be too short to actually concentrate. Personally like the 40 minute - 10 minute cycle more.
If you are working at home, I found that cheap mechanical kitchen timers are great. These days, I'm experimenting with an oversize hourglass. It makes no noise and no indication that it ended. However, the beauty I found is that if I didn't see the sand all over from the upper section, then I might been in a zone. When my mind gets back to distraction or normalize and see that the sand is over, I just walk around, have tea and get back to the next.
My personal experience and thoughts.