Yo dawg, I heard you like interruptions...
this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2024
28 points (93.8% liked)
Wikipedia
1475 readers
251 users here now
A place to share interesting articles from Wikipedia.
Rules:
- Only links to Wikipedia permitted
- Please stick to the format "Article Title (other descriptive text/editorialization)"
Recommended:
- If possible, when submitting please delete the "m." from "en.m.wikipedia.org". This will ensure people clicking from desktop will get the full Wikipedia website.
- Interested users can find add-ons and scripts which do this automatically.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
It's only an interruption if you're already busy and productive. This method helped me when I was going through a particularly bad period and couldn't get anything done. The end of the Pomodoro wasn't and interruption, but a goal that I was relieved to reach.
Maybe surprisingly, it is actually a technique to limit interruptions, specifically because you are only working on your current task for 25 minutes. It makes it much easier to not switch tasks in the middle because your next time to switch tasks is less than 25 minutes away. For example, if you're in a task writing a report and you remember that you were supposed to send an email, you write down the email task to do later and don't worry about it because if it's important than you will pick it for your next pomodoro. This allows you to stay focused on the report you're writing for this pomodoro.
It's possible that I was just doing it entirely wrong, but I seem to recall (from when I tried it years ago) that I would still get interruptions (like phone calls, meetings, and slack messages) but then the timer would go off during those interruptions.
This got me through college. As someone who gets easily overwhelmed by large tasks, saying to myself that I will only work on it for 20 minutes (I do a 20/10 split) made things manageable and also it kept me from gluing myself to the chair unless I wanted to do it which made it seem more like a choice. I would frequently get through a few intervals and then keep skipping the breaks as I got nearer to the end of the task. I highly recommend this technique to people!