Assumed audience: People familiar with at least some of the “getting things done” world, particularly the use of focused work blocks and the pomodoro technique.
I have used a pomodoro timer to help me stay focused on work off and on for well over a decade now. It was a key part of how I managed to get through working close to full time (sometimes more than full time) while also taking a heavy course load back in the seminary years, and it has remained a key tool in my toolbox for being effective with my working time ever since.
For all that time, I have stuck quite consistently to the classic 25-minute timer duration. It is the default on every app I have ever used,1 and it is the recommendation of every write-up I have ever seen on it. Some of them, like the one I linked above, point out that you don’t have to stick with 25 minute blocks. And of course, 25 minutes is a fairly arbitrary amount of time! People can focus for significantly longer than that. From my reading over the years we tend to top out somewhere around
Last week, recognizing that I frequently find myself extending Tadam sessions by a fair bit, I decided to start experimenting. What duration works best? I don’t know yet. So far it seems like I’m landing somewhere in the
In any case: take this as permission to tweak “productivity” guidance to yourself. Duh. But sometimes we need the permission!