Could Time-Blocking Replace Your To-Do List? (2017)

Pomodoro is probably the closest I've come to having a technique I can stick with, although it never lasts more than a week or two (neither does any habit of mine, except the bad ones of course). I do find the default 25 min to be laughably short though -- when I'm in a Pomo phase I usually set it to 60 minutes w/ 15 min break.

Pomodoro also fits in well with dealing with ergonomic issues in desk work. Sitting too long can be bad for you. Some try to fix that with standing desks, but standing too long is also bad--you are just trading one set of problems for another.

Here's an article about that [1] from the Cornell ergonomics lab. Here's their recommentation:

> Sit to do computer work. Sit using a height-adjustable, downward titling keyboard tray for the best work posture, then every 20 minutes stand for 8 minutes AND MOVE for 2 minutes. The absolute time isn’t critical but about every 20-30 minutes take a posture break and stand and move for a couple of minutes. Simply standing is insufficient. Movement is important to get blood circulation through the muscles. And movement is FREE! Research shows that you don’t need to do vigorous exercise (e.g. jumping jacks) to get the benefits, just walking around is sufficient. So build in a pattern of creating greater movement variety in the workplace (e.g. walk to a printer, water fountain, stand for a meeting, take the stairs, walk around the floor, park a bit further away from the building each day)

If you use something like Pomodoro, then your breaks between intervals fall right into the recommended times to stand and move around.

[1] https://ergo.human.cornell.edu/CUESitStand.html

Would you like this for your team or you alone?

Founder of Sunsama here. Just wanted to chime in to say that we've basically rebuilt the product from the ground up over the past 6 months to make sure things are fast and reliable.

The Pomodoro method says to block out X(small) time to work on your task. Then you switch to another task. If the first task was not done you schedule another time block, not necessarily sequentially. You are basically iterating on larger tasks. It’s a way to motivate yourself to start on tasks and to keep you from spending more time than necessary on a task. [edit “pomodoro” has a lot of o’s]

I’m (happily) surprised I don’t see more of this kind of self-promotion here on HN.