Great article. BTW does somebody here know great timer app for Mac or Linux? I'm trying this "60 work / 30 rest" pattern, but sometimes problem is so interesting and I just can't keep track of the time:)
sleep 30min ; mplayer xxx.mp3
Don't need any ticking timer, it will just distract you. But if you really need it's only a few more lines.
I used to do sleep 60 min ; find / to wait for the hard disk noise but that doesn't work anymore since i have a SSD.