This seems like a very good idea, but I’m not sure that it fills the same role as the traditional Pomodoro (grain of salt: still new to Pomodoro).
One of the problems that I find when programming (and a lot of other tasks, really) is that it’s easy to get wrapped up in “how do I implement this?” instead of “What do I need to implement to achieve my goal?”. This is especially problematic when it becomes even finer scaled—“I need to understand/rework this one little part because maybe it’s causing the current bug/error” instead of “what is the most time-efficient way for me to try to solve the current bug/error”. I’ve spent many hours banging my head against a wall trying to implement/fix something that was ultimately unimportant. Your technique here seems to be a great solution to this problem—frequently pulling out of tactical mode to think strategically, (plus making sure that you’re fed etc, which has a huge impact on my work efficiency).
On the other hand, my impression with the Pomodoro technique is that part of the goal is to make it easier to stay motivated—it’s much easier for me to sustain a decent pace of work for a day when I know that every 20 or 25 minutes I’m going to have a 5 minute break to do something fun. I’m looking forward to trying your modification, but I’m wondering if, at least for myself, I’m going to need an additional five minutes to just do something fun (at least if I want to be able to keep up my work all day long). Although, as you point out, 15 minutes is actually a long time, and maybe only 10 minutes of it is really necessary for the strategic thinking and body maintenance stuff.
Hey, thanks for the insight! You hit right on the head what benefit I derive from this, and I think you’re right that I neglected to notice that the benefit is pretty different from that of the original Pomodoro. And, I actually still do use the original Pomodoro when I need to bust through tasks I really don’t want to do, because the “It’s only 25 minutes” is pretty compelling. Good point.
This seems like a very good idea, but I’m not sure that it fills the same role as the traditional Pomodoro (grain of salt: still new to Pomodoro).
One of the problems that I find when programming (and a lot of other tasks, really) is that it’s easy to get wrapped up in “how do I implement this?” instead of “What do I need to implement to achieve my goal?”. This is especially problematic when it becomes even finer scaled—“I need to understand/rework this one little part because maybe it’s causing the current bug/error” instead of “what is the most time-efficient way for me to try to solve the current bug/error”. I’ve spent many hours banging my head against a wall trying to implement/fix something that was ultimately unimportant. Your technique here seems to be a great solution to this problem—frequently pulling out of tactical mode to think strategically, (plus making sure that you’re fed etc, which has a huge impact on my work efficiency).
On the other hand, my impression with the Pomodoro technique is that part of the goal is to make it easier to stay motivated—it’s much easier for me to sustain a decent pace of work for a day when I know that every 20 or 25 minutes I’m going to have a 5 minute break to do something fun. I’m looking forward to trying your modification, but I’m wondering if, at least for myself, I’m going to need an additional five minutes to just do something fun (at least if I want to be able to keep up my work all day long). Although, as you point out, 15 minutes is actually a long time, and maybe only 10 minutes of it is really necessary for the strategic thinking and body maintenance stuff.
Hey, thanks for the insight! You hit right on the head what benefit I derive from this, and I think you’re right that I neglected to notice that the benefit is pretty different from that of the original Pomodoro. And, I actually still do use the original Pomodoro when I need to bust through tasks I really don’t want to do, because the “It’s only 25 minutes” is pretty compelling. Good point.