Hacker News Reader

Out of curiosity, could you provide some more info on Pomodoro techniques? Never heard of it until you mentioned this, and am curious to learn more / understand how it can be effective in software. To me, context switching can be very costly, so I am very skeptical of breaking off my concentration every 25 minutes. Thanks in advance!

View on HN

I've been using the Pomodoro technique for a few months for coding. The technique was actually first developed by a software developer in Italy; there's a free ebook describing the process[1].

I was kind of worried about the context switching when I first started out, but it didn't turn out to be an issue. The breaks are a good breather and allow me to code for longer. The strict timing of the breaks also prevent me from slacking off and not going back to work.

The 25 minute quantums may be short for some people. There's no reason why you can't customize this and use 45 minutes with a 10 minute break instead.

[1] http://www.pomodorotechnique.com/book.html

Reply on news.ycombinator.com