Today I didn’t use the Pomodoro Technique. It wasn’t so much a planned thing, but just how the morning worked out. I wanted to get right to work on an outline for a longer project. I dove right in and didn’t start my pomodoro timer.

I had my other timer running, the one I use for tracking billable time1. So, there was a running counter in my menu bar. My first thought was to just look up at it, and take a break every half-hour or so. That really didn’t work out as planned.

I noticed several things:

Overall, I was able to cross off the tasks I had planned, but doing so felt messy and unstructured. I spent more time that I wanted at the desk, finding it easy to cmd-tab over to Twitter or email. I hadn’t noticed the how the focus blocks really did help me focus on the current task. The idea the timer was “watching” me was enough to keep my mind from wandering.

Having just found my Pomodoro groove, then having a day without tomatoes was quite shocking.