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Comment by gatherhunterer | Hacker News Reader

Whenever I see Deep Work apps I always see a reference to the Pomodoro technique but nothing about the techniques specific to deep work as it is described by Cal Newport. What about omitting distractions, prioritizing a single daily task or using your down time to do some brief yet satisfying activity to relax between tasks? Many of these deep work apps are just to-do lists with a timer.

Edit: For what it's worth OP's previous post about this project suggests that he/she has these features in mind and they are just not in this version.

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Agreed. I normally use the two together. Basically plan what I need to do the night before (no more than 20 mins). During the day - shut off instant messenger and email (mostly drives my boss nuts) from 10am-1pm and 3pm-5pm and work on 50 minute work/ 10 minute break pomodoro intervals.

Helps immensely in getting code/math/design/docs/etc. done. I'll do this about 3 days of the week.

I like that idea. My colleague who block off work request between 11am to 1pm every day to work on an important project.

That project was not making much progress due to many work requests from different departments.

This method helps him to deliver the project.

Maybe that reflects better what is the reality for most people in office jobs: some predictable with many unpredictable tasks, many possible distractions (email!) and the most manageable gain is simply by forcing short-term focus?

Or also that pomodoro can be used with a variety of tasks.

Cal's ideas (which also appear in many forms in other books) aren't really much/always applicable to my and I assume many other people's lives.

From the 4DX (4 Disciplines of Execution) Cal Newport mentioned in the book, people play a different game while keeping a scoreboard.

In my initial idea, the scoreboard (I have it on the left menu) is the core value of the app. The scoreboard should motivate you to focus on the goals.

I will work harder on improving the scoreboard so that it won't be just another todo + timer app.

And, based on my friend's feedback, I'm working on a feature that you can set your own interval instead of following Pomodoro technique.

Thank you so much for your feedback. It means a lot to me.

I’m glad to see someone interested in feedback during development. I’m sure it will turn out well.

Thank you :)

Since you're asking, here's mine side project which tries to tackle distractions as well (at least from Slack): qdochat.com Feedback is appreciated!

Ironically, if you're in deep work, Pomodoro Technique is actually distracting.

Yeah, once you're in that state of flow where time ceases to exist, that beeping snaps you right out. I think the key is to find the time chunk which gets you up to that point where you're just about to feel mentally exhausted.

For me, the Pomodoro is the starting point, so 1 Pomodoro to get you to focus for 25 mins. After that, you can a take a quick break, but for the 2nd Pomodoro, you simply disable the alert, and let the timer run on.

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