![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Yesterday was intriguing.
I've wanted to find a timer that i could set for short and long intervals, as my experience has been that the idea of "timeboxing" really helps me. I can actually get 15-30 minutes of anything done and surmount the perfectionist tendencies by pointing to the timebox. "This is what i can do in 20 minutes." Cleaning the bathroom yesterday, for example, some things were scrubbed and polished, some things not so much. It's certainly cleaner than it was, and cleaner than it would be if i waited until i had time to do it all. I did some writing on my comparison of Friends' practice and SCRUM: what can i do in 20 minutes? Some writing was done, even if i could have spent all day on it.
The transition between timeboxes isn't instantaneous, though, and i wanted to set a timer on transition, so that i'd not spend half an hour developing a system for, say, picking a household area to clean based on a die roll. (Instead i spent 3 minutes on it, and the floorplan of the house is awful. It works though: yay, for good enough.)
So, i searched for timeboxing timers for android and found a bunch of results with tomato icons and named "Pomodoro" or some variation. It turns out there's a whole commercialized system: http://www.pomodorotechnique.com/ .
Some of the timers seem to have exactly what i want. As usual, the temptation was to make a complete survey of all the apps and compare and contrast, but i was able to remind myself i was just looking for good enough. "Pomodoro Tasks" was the first free one that surpassed being a simple timer and instead chained the task timer to the break timer, and even has the longer fourth break.
It felt productive to use the system for a couple of hours, even with the vacuum cleaner going up in smoke. On the other hand, it was intense. After a couple of hours, I ended up eating some more of the cookie dough and then, felt the sugar crash coming on. I napped, and fell into the deepest sleep, and woke completely disoriented.
I've wanted to find a timer that i could set for short and long intervals, as my experience has been that the idea of "timeboxing" really helps me. I can actually get 15-30 minutes of anything done and surmount the perfectionist tendencies by pointing to the timebox. "This is what i can do in 20 minutes." Cleaning the bathroom yesterday, for example, some things were scrubbed and polished, some things not so much. It's certainly cleaner than it was, and cleaner than it would be if i waited until i had time to do it all. I did some writing on my comparison of Friends' practice and SCRUM: what can i do in 20 minutes? Some writing was done, even if i could have spent all day on it.
The transition between timeboxes isn't instantaneous, though, and i wanted to set a timer on transition, so that i'd not spend half an hour developing a system for, say, picking a household area to clean based on a die roll. (Instead i spent 3 minutes on it, and the floorplan of the house is awful. It works though: yay, for good enough.)
So, i searched for timeboxing timers for android and found a bunch of results with tomato icons and named "Pomodoro" or some variation. It turns out there's a whole commercialized system: http://www.pomodorotechnique.com/ .
Some of the timers seem to have exactly what i want. As usual, the temptation was to make a complete survey of all the apps and compare and contrast, but i was able to remind myself i was just looking for good enough. "Pomodoro Tasks" was the first free one that surpassed being a simple timer and instead chained the task timer to the break timer, and even has the longer fourth break.
It felt productive to use the system for a couple of hours, even with the vacuum cleaner going up in smoke. On the other hand, it was intense. After a couple of hours, I ended up eating some more of the cookie dough and then, felt the sugar crash coming on. I napped, and fell into the deepest sleep, and woke completely disoriented.
Tags: