How long you’ve been using this system? Has it been tested by a decently-sized period where you had a large workload? Intuitively, needing to always be in a block feels like a considerable amount of bloat in the system—maintenance work that you’re imposing on yourself without sufficiently large gains. However, I don’t currently use anything like Pomodoros to prevent procrastination, so I’m likely missing something.
I’m also thinking that it would be tiresome to try to divide everything into 25-minute chunks. If I’m trying to learn something, I don’t want to take a break in 25 minutes when I’ve already loaded stuff into my brain. Maybe more variable length work blocks would be better here? (Or maybe you already use them to a greater extent that I thought when reading your post?)
reports on time usage and a system to help me calibrate my expectations for the amount of time a task is likely to take
Given my own habits, I wouldn’t even try to implement something like this unless I’d managed to reduce the maintenance work to almost nil. Both of these seem to involve all task start and end times, which would be a significant pain (for me.)
ETA: Also, upvoted. I like reading things like this—it helps me get a feel for systems that I personally haven’t set up without having to go to the trouble of actually doing so.
How long you’ve been using this system? Has it been tested by a decently-sized period where you had a large workload?
I started using the system about 6 months ago, but I used it infrequently for about half the time; so, it’s still fairly new. I’ve used it for some fairly heavy workloads. I’m going to try to use it to maintain a self-directed ≥8hr/day workload over the summer, so that’ll probably be the big stress test.
Intuitively, needing to always be in a block feels like a considerable amount of bloat in the system—maintenance work that you’re imposing on yourself without sufficiently large gains.
They don’t take that long to set up—maybe 15-45 seconds. They do cost me some time, but it’s more than repaid in increased productivity.
If I’m trying to learn something, I don’t want to take a break in 25 minutes when I’ve already loaded stuff into my brain. Maybe more variable length work blocks would be better here? (Or maybe you already use them to a greater extent that I thought when reading your post?)
What actually happens in practice is that if I’m sufficiently engaged in an activity I either work straight through the breaks or I forget about the timer altogether. (This seems to happen a lot when I’m programming.) Since this tends to be my most productive time, I’m probably going to come up with some rule change to legitimize this; perhaps ad-hoc conversion of any productive block to indefinite.
ETA: Also, upvoted. I like reading things like this—it helps me get a feel for systems that I personally haven’t set up without having to go to the trouble of actually doing so.
Well in that case this won’t count as spam :)
I’ve developed an iPhone app called PlanMyWeek where you describe your tasks, tap a button and then the app schedules the tasks for you.
I was going to prepare a post that when using the app, how quickly it becomes apparent I’ve fallen for the Planning Fallacy, but this seemed like a good opportunity as any.
How long you’ve been using this system? Has it been tested by a decently-sized period where you had a large workload? Intuitively, needing to always be in a block feels like a considerable amount of bloat in the system—maintenance work that you’re imposing on yourself without sufficiently large gains. However, I don’t currently use anything like Pomodoros to prevent procrastination, so I’m likely missing something.
I’m also thinking that it would be tiresome to try to divide everything into 25-minute chunks. If I’m trying to learn something, I don’t want to take a break in 25 minutes when I’ve already loaded stuff into my brain. Maybe more variable length work blocks would be better here? (Or maybe you already use them to a greater extent that I thought when reading your post?)
Given my own habits, I wouldn’t even try to implement something like this unless I’d managed to reduce the maintenance work to almost nil. Both of these seem to involve all task start and end times, which would be a significant pain (for me.)
ETA: Also, upvoted. I like reading things like this—it helps me get a feel for systems that I personally haven’t set up without having to go to the trouble of actually doing so.
I started using the system about 6 months ago, but I used it infrequently for about half the time; so, it’s still fairly new. I’ve used it for some fairly heavy workloads. I’m going to try to use it to maintain a self-directed ≥8hr/day workload over the summer, so that’ll probably be the big stress test.
They don’t take that long to set up—maybe 15-45 seconds. They do cost me some time, but it’s more than repaid in increased productivity.
What actually happens in practice is that if I’m sufficiently engaged in an activity I either work straight through the breaks or I forget about the timer altogether. (This seems to happen a lot when I’m programming.) Since this tends to be my most productive time, I’m probably going to come up with some rule change to legitimize this; perhaps ad-hoc conversion of any productive block to indefinite.
Well in that case this won’t count as spam :)
I’ve developed an iPhone app called PlanMyWeek where you describe your tasks, tap a button and then the app schedules the tasks for you.
I was going to prepare a post that when using the app, how quickly it becomes apparent I’ve fallen for the Planning Fallacy, but this seemed like a good opportunity as any.