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Comment by mroll | Hacker News Reader

Any programmers here use pomodoro? I expect 25 minute interruptions would do more harm than good for my focus when writing code, especially the continuous expectation that I will be interrupted. I don’t have a pressing interest in finding productivity tips, just curious to hear about programmers who have tried this technique

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I did use it for a while, because I had issues starting to work. It helped with that but like you said, 25m were not enough and the interruptions got quite annoying. I tried a 45m/10m work/pause ratio instead and it was a bit better, but I don't really use pomodoro anymore. It helped me to form a "habit of starting" though.

I think this is key. Used to do it, then didn't need it!

I use pomodoro but with 45 mins instead of 25. I am usually tuned to deep focus playlist on YouTube/Spotify. In the five minutes, I listen to my current favorites song for full five minutes. Every day I aim for 10 pomodoros. Earlier I was able to do 3-4 and was left unmotivated. Now I have been able to crush 10+ everyday for last eight days.

25 mins is too short for certain types of work. I find 45-50 mins of work with 10-15 min breaks works the best for me. Starting with 25 minutes is mentally easier when you are first starting a task and then once you get the hang of it you can adjust. Sometimes I would go longer because I was really in the zone.

I did pomodoro for about a month once. It was actually helping a lot. I think I got lazy after a while and stopped doing the entire stop-watch thing, thinking I would continue doing it by just looking at the clock.

I think I will try pomodoro again today and see if I can get back that juicy tomato timer goodness.

I have more or less the same experience.

I used tomato-timer.com. It’s really good.

What I've found in using the technique is that anything lost in focus is more than made up for by insights gained during the break.

Taking your eyes off of a problem for a short time can often help you return to it with a different mindset / approach.

I tried it and had that issue. Usually break time would happen while I really needed to keep my train of thought. Now I just try to do things in smaller sessions when possible and test often. While tests are running I go for a walk.

However, I have found it to be really nice for my Japanese language study. When I come back after a break I feel any new words or concepts I was learning have solidified a little better than if I were to just keep going.

I've found that pomodoro solves two problems.

First, 25 minute is a small, non-frightening investment of time that you CAN do; so it facilitates starting an activity.

Second, since 25 minutes is indeed a short span, the clock usually stops before you have completed the activity (meaning that you know what to do next) and also before you are tired. So after a little rest it is also easy to start another pomodoro. And so on. You keep momentum.

:raises hand: I use it!

If you have no problem with focus, perhaps you don't need it.

I've found it useful at my work (consulting/team lead) where I'm expected to be somewhat responsive to email/slack. Rather than leaving Slack/email open (rookie move, I know), I use Pomodoro (currently at 45/5) just to remind me to open them, check for new stuff, and then close them again for my next chunk of work.

I use pomodoro and find it helps my productivity more than hinder it. Mind you I show signs of ADHD (working w/ a doc to get a diagnosis now) so pomodoro might no be for everyone but I find it allows me to slice out some time to really focus and not let myself get distracted.

When time is of the essence I simply skip the 5 minute breaks but continue to work using the pomodoro.

According to Russel Barkley (well known and central figure in the ADHD scientific community), you should definitely take short breaks every so many minutes.

He recommends 3 mins for every 10 minutes of work, but that's for children.

I think you'd want be interested in watching this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tpB-B8BXk0

Definitely check out his other work as well, listening to his talks is like reading my own diary... except translated to scientific language

I have used it and it works quite well, for certain types of work.

The 25 is just a suggestion, a starting point. There's no reason it can't be any other number.

But in the end I lost most of the ideas of the actual Pomodoro method (e.g. if you finish your work in the first five minutes of a Pomodoro, you still have to spend the twenty minutes left on improving what you did, no switching tasks within a Pomodoro -- I don't do that), what's left is just setting a timer and staying concentrated for that long. That works well for me.

What's hard is keeping the breaks short. I often start procrastinating during them and then only start the next Pomodoro much later.

There's a phone app / browser extension called "Forest" that's nice, you can set a timer and add a tree to a forest if you manage to stay off the phone / away from bad websites for that long, and add a dead tree to your forest if you failed.

works well and doesn't have to be 25 minutes, it can be an hour. Experiment (test and learn)

The magic for me isn't seeing the timer as a distraction to my flow, but an enabler - that timer reminds me to go take a walk and let my "diffuse" mode thinking take over and all the sudden things start to click.

It's good for getting you started.

So you've become stuck. You pick something you know will be a quick job (e.g. do this one method, fix this one bug).

Then after a few podomoro you stop doing them as you get into the flow and get into the zone.

25+5 is too short but I found 48+12 worked well. With that said usually it's just about starting, once you start it's not nearly as hard to keep going.

I personally use 50/10/50/25 on off on off.

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