pomodoro flow

The reason I never got into a consistent Pomodoro habit—where you set a timer, work until that timer goes off, then take a break and repeat—is that my biggest hurdle to getting things done tends to be getting started at all. If I can just push past that first bit of let’s-do-anything-but-work inertia, the productivity demon kicks in and it’s pretty easy to keep coasting on that newer, more constructive form of inertia for a while.

So being interrupted by a timer at regular intervals is not particularly helpful. Every time I get yanked out of the task at hand, I have to clear yet another let’s-do-anything-but-work hurdle to get back into it, which sucks when that’s the exact thing that keeps tripping me up. But that damn tomato demands a five-minute break Right Now, Or Else.

a better way #

There’s a Pomodoro variant I’ve been using lately that, at least for me, at least most of the time, actually helps more than it hurts. I didn’t invent it, but other than a few stray forum comments I haven’t seen many people talk about it, and never with any kind of distinct name that you could tell someone to plug into a search engine. (Some comments referred to it as “reverse Pomodoro” or “Orodomop”, but those names are more commonly used for a different thing where you set a short, timed focus period and then take a much longer timed break. This is not that.)

Let’s call it Pomodoro Flow. Or Flowmodoro if you want to be punchy, but then I can’t make a stupid Enya joke about it.

What makes Pomodoro Flow not suck is that instead of counting down during the focus block, like a timer, you count up, like a stopwatch. A standard Pomodoro session has you set a maximum threshold with a hard stop; Pomodoro Flow has you set a minimum threshold with the option to take a break at any point after reaching it—which means that if you get antsy, you can quit after you’ve put in enough time, but if you’ve settled into a nice groove, you can keep going as long as you want. And to compensate for these potentially longer focus periods, you can scale the length of your breaks accordingly.

how it works #

1. Decide on a minimum threshold of focus time—I usually opt for 25 minutes, but you can do whatever.
2. Set a stopwatch (remember, counting up!), and get to work.
3. When you feel the urge to quit, check how much time has passed.
1. If you haven't met your focus threshold yet, push yourself to keep working, then check again as needed
2. If you've met your focus threshold, take a break.
4. Decide how long your break should be based on how long you worked past your focus threshold. For example, if I only worked for 27 minutes, I might take a quick five-minute break, but if I worked closer to an hour, I might take 10 or even 15. (Make sure to set a normal timer for your break, counting down.)
5. Repeat from step one.

If you catch yourself goofing off before you reach your focus threshold, reset the stopwatch and start over. If the goofing-off happens after you reach your threshold then, uh, I guess that counts as a break?

my observations #

A funny thing I’ve noticed is that if I can tooth-and-nail my way past the minimum threshold, it’s comparatively easy to settle into a solid 45+ minute focus session, and if I’ve settled into at least one solid focus session that day, being interrupted isn’t as productivity-killing as it usually is. Especially if I’m still chipping away at the same task. I think after a certain point I cross over into Giving A Shit territory, at which point my desire to finish outweighs the usual competing desire to do basically anything else.

But getting past that first threshold can be really hard! Even after I commit to a focus block, I have a bad habit of breaking focus early and usually need to start over a few times… hence the goof-off rule. (I mentioned that I didn’t invent this variant, but that rule is my own personal addition, lol.) Having the stopwatch keeps me honest, at least.