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.
I think there might be some ambiguity with the “sidekick” thing. I understand framing this as a hero and side-kick dynamic, but I think it might be easier to create a mental model of a team with some people playing more of a support role. [For consistency with other posts, I’m going to largely phrase things in terms of hero and sidekick] Either way, though, I see two general way things can go, one healthy and one unhealthy.
“I am going to do whatever I can to help this hero, no matter what” is a version of side-kicking I see a lot in books. And I recently pulled myself out of a relationship where I fell into a similar dynamic (although without my partner actually falling into the “hero” role). The “do anything, come what may” aspect is very dangerous. And when I first read this post, that was the part that I found slightly disconcerting.
However, there’s another style of support/sidekicking that seems very healthy and productive to me:
“I am going to find a person or persons who are effective at achieving goal(s) I find important, and do what I feel appropriate to help them achieve those goals for as long as it seems like the right thing to do (where a condition of “right thing to do” is that they are treating me well).” This is a much more specific and conditional statement, and one that to me feels both powerful and healthy.
Reading some of the followup posts suggest that you and Brienne both fall into the second camp:
The fiance of my best friend plays a supporting role (not a supporting actor, mind you) at a major movie production company. She doesn’t act, she doesn’t design things, she doesn’t get credit for all the big achievements. She just keeps all the different parts working together, keeps everyone on schedule, and when necessary handles the details necessary for the big name actors to be at their best (accommodating dietary needs, etc). The high status individuals like actors and animators may be more directly involved in producing the movies, but without this supporting individual and others like her, big productions would never be possible. I feel that many large endeavors (and perhaps even small ones) need people who can play such supporting roles.
I think the danger of the hero-sidekick dynamic is if there is such a strong bond of loyalty to the individual that either the hero or the sidekick is willing to tolerate being treated poorly, or interacting with someone who is no longer important in achieving the overarching goals. And because you can have heroes without sidekicks but you can’t have sidekicks without heroes, I would expect asymmetry in what sidekicks and heroes would naturally tolerate. But ultimately you are trying to WIN, which means that—emotional ties aside—the hero isn’t as important as how your contributions are helping to achieve your stated goals. Which means that, as a rationalist, you should work with a hero only for as long as that is the rational thing to do. It’s the potential for irrational loyalty that makes this subject slightly uncomfortable to me.
One of the things that I have found incredibly valuable for my romantic life, which seems equally valuable here, is to create a list of your goals, what you’re looking for in a partnership/team, what you’re happy doing and what you’re unhappy doing. While, as rationalists, we should be capable of setting aside our emotions while in the midst of a personal relationship (romantic, or platonic hero-sidekick, or really any other) to evaluate whether it’s the right thing, it’s much easier if you have a preexisting guideline. This, in turn, should drastically reduce the likelihood of exploitation by a less-than-perfect “hero”.