Years ago a Buddhist monk recommended to me to set a bell every 30 minutes as a mindfulness practice. When you hear the bell, look up, bring your consciousness back to your breath for a few breaths, make sure you are aware of your body posture, especially when sitting in front of a computer, and then go back to what you were doing.<p>The pomodoro technique always reminds me of this.
Here's a productivity tricks that works for me:<p>Reason why I stop working on a project is because after a while (or 10 minutes...), it just gets boring.<p>So I toggle between 3-4 similarly important projects a day. The excitement of doing something new when I switch helps me keep working (just on a different project).<p>Yes there is a cost to mentally switching regularly but it's worth it to avoid the much higher cost of watching Youtube instead!
My favorite Pomodoro Timer is:<p><a href="http://tomato-timer.com/" rel="nofollow">http://tomato-timer.com/</a><p>This one is lacking some features (I understand it aims to be minimalistic, but it cut flexibility on the process...)
Plug for <a href="https://complice.co/" rel="nofollow">https://complice.co/</a> for group pomodoro's. There's a hacker news channel. Pretty interesting concept, especially for mobile workers who still want to "chat" with someone.
Nice. For those who'd like a todo list to go with their Pomodoro* timer, I've created Lanes: <a href="https://lanes.io" rel="nofollow">https://lanes.io</a>.<p>It tracks how many pomodoros you complete each day and how long you spent being productive. Plus you can see the aggregate # of poms completed by all users of the app (which I find motivating).<p>*Not strictly a Pomodoro as the timer can be adjusted, but hey that's what the users wanted.
I just use `notify-send` every 30 minutes... <a href="https://github.com/dcousens/dotfiles/blob/master/.xinitstatusbar#L88-L94" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/dcousens/dotfiles/blob/master/.xinitstatu...</a>.
I use this <a href="http://martakostova.github.io/timer/" rel="nofollow">http://martakostova.github.io/timer/</a> (compiled by myself) . It's good becuase it can run script, so i can sete myself to a DND status on slack when the pomodoro is running and turn back online after that. E.g.f for start you can use a script like this<p>do shell script "curl '<a href="https://slack.com/api/dnd.setSnooze?token=<yourtoken>&num_minutes=$duration'"" rel="nofollow">https://slack.com/api/dnd.setSnooze?token=<yourtoken>&num_mi...</a>
I love it! Doesn't get much more minimal than that.<p>Here's my relatively bloated pomodoro tracker: <a href="http://alexose.github.io/pomodoro/" rel="nofollow">http://alexose.github.io/pomodoro/</a>
Hi, nice one!<p>Just a suggestion, check the behaviour of the "do_it" div. If I click on it and then click outside without writing anything, the div will collapse leaving a blank area, and it will not be possible (or it will be very hard) to open it again.<p>I did one too before summer. Here's mine <a href="http://codepen.io/gianc/full/oLdGAv" rel="nofollow">http://codepen.io/gianc/full/oLdGAv</a><p>I'm still learning, any criticism and/or advice is appreciated.
This is great. Now good luck resisting the urge to add just one more feature.<p>I really hope you don't because there are other more feature-bloated timers out there. This seems perfect to me.
Is there an article outlining the idea behind these tomato timers, similarly to GTD or is it in reality just a simple system that I am trying to read too much into?
Nice work! A good, minimalist solution.<p>----<p>My personal favourite is Strict Workflow [1], which is a Chrome extension. It has the added benefit of preventing idle website browsing during a work phase.<p>[1] <a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/strict-workflow/cgmnfnmlficgeijcalkgnnkigkefkbhd" rel="nofollow">https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/strict-workflow/cg...</a>
I get distracted by shiny things, so I made a low-distraction work timer <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/p/low-distraction-work-timer/9nblggh5r6z1" rel="nofollow">https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/p/low-distraction-work...</a><p>It moves pretty much imperceptibly so that it doesn't distract from the task at hand.
I use Timebar, which is unfortunately no longer available through the Mac App Store. <a href="http://lifehacker.com/timebar-turns-your-macs-menubar-into-a-timer-484724310" rel="nofollow">http://lifehacker.com/timebar-turns-your-macs-menubar-into-a...</a><p>It turns your entire top menu bar into a countdown bar which you can keep an eye on peripherally as you work.
My preferred behaviour for pomodoro timers is: start the break countdown automatically at the end of a pomodoro, but wait for the user to click to start the next pomodoro. Does it do that?<p>For everyone who has not tried the pomodoro technique (25 minutes focused work, 5 minutes everything else): give it a try! I'm constantly surprised at how much I can get done in 25 minutes.
I have a simple PS script to use at work (so I don't have to install any extra applications, plus I can customize it easily). It shows the remaining time as well as a desktop notfication:
<a href="https://github.com/maxlorenz/ps-pomodoro" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/maxlorenz/ps-pomodoro</a>
I made a pomodoro app for Linux based on taskwarrior. I have been using it for a while with free sync online ...
<a href="https://github.com/liloman/pomodoroTasks" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/liloman/pomodoroTasks</a>
Ah, memories. I did one of those, too, a few years ago: <a href="http://pomodoro-timer.org/" rel="nofollow">http://pomodoro-timer.org/</a><p>It even has an animated tomato, uses localstorage to save your work record, and makes ding in the end!
I really dig the aesthetic and simplicity of <a href="http://luckyshot.github.io/twentyfive/" rel="nofollow">http://luckyshot.github.io/twentyfive/</a>
I like and am at the same time annoyed that it is so simple.<p>One the one hand I have a doze features I'd like to have. On the other I know those are mostly time wastes.