In Praise Of Pomodoros

Concentrating intensely has never been my strong suit, and I have been feeling that more than even in recent months. Some of the tasks I have been assigned are intensely tedious and I just can’t seem to keep my focus. So, I have started doing Pomodoros, which are 25-mins-long work sessions interspersed with 5 minute breaks. After four such sessions, you take a longer break. Twenty-five minutes is a manageable chunk of time. At no point of the session will you be left with a dismal feeling if you look at how long you have to go before the session ends. I did Pomodoros years ago in Bristol, when I would meet with other PhD students in a cafe for weekly group-writing sessions. That worked well, until i discovered that I preferred working on a desktop in the PhD office, which was a very pleasant room. I am not typically a fan of the glass-and-steel building it was housed in, but that meant it got plenty of light in dreary English weather. And, the walls facing outwards were all windows, and I love gazing out of windows. Pacing about the room and gazing out of windows were essential to my research process, and I keep asking myself why I don't do more of it. I also tried doing Pomodors by myself during my PhD, marking completed sessions with notches on a post-it note. With my current intensely dreary and ill-defined task, Pomodoros have been a godsend. Since the endpoint is not very clear, I have decided to allocate a set number of Pomodoros, and consider what I have at the end of those sessions as the finished product.