I don’t think the Pomodoro Technique is very good. Specifically, the forced stopping after 25 minutes I think is quite bad. There are some tasks that simply require you to focus for a long period of time, often times more than 25 minutes. For example, you are not going to read a 25 page journal paper in 25 minutes. Sure you could break it up into several bite-sized chunks of reading but it’s better to just read the whole paper front to back several times. No human is going to legitimately read one page per minute on a technical paper.
Instead, I think the 15 minute rule is a much better strategy. When you’re ready to start a block of work, start a stopwatch (not a timer) and begin working. You are not allowed to stop working until the stopwatch reads at least 15 minutes. You are responsible for policing your own distractedness in whatever way suits best. After 15 minutes are up, once you lose focus, you are allowed to rest for the number of minutes you focused for divided by 31.
The key here is that it’s easy for your brain to bargain “Okay, I just have to focus for 15 minutes then I can have fun” but it’s also very easy for your brain to say “wow, look at all the progress I’m making, let’s keep going!” Before you know it, the stopwatch will read 30 minutes, 45 minutes, one hour and you’ll have a bunch of work done.
This is a huge benefit over the Pomodoro technique in that sometimes your brain should and can focus on a single task for a very long period of time, and allowing it to do so gives huge benefits. It also allows you to take varying lengths of rest depending on how long you have worked for.
Footnotes
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This time isn’t set in stone, I’m still playing with how long I should rest for. Maybe 5 minutes + time/3 is a better time. Often you have a good idea of when you’re ready to work when you’re in the zone, and you can play by ear, or you know you’ll get distracted and you can go with time/3. ↩