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How Failing With Pomodoro Technique Made Me 2x Better Programmer

Rohov Dmytro on March 27, 2019

Trying to make Pomodoro Technique work for me started with struggling. But that taught me a lot! And eventually led to building great habits around...
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Jeremiah Ware

I struggled with Pom for dev as well at first. Did great for entrepreneurial, self improvement tasks. So I tried 50 minute poms with 10 minute break for awhile.

What really helped me resolve my failures was to keep to TDD while doing 25 minute Poms. It allowed me to keep focused as I tried to get from failing test to passing tests, while also give me a clear place to come back to. If I finish a full test in a single Pom. Then I moved on to the next test after the break. If not, I could take my break and knew exactly what I needed to accomplish when I came back.

And I did interrupt myself a lot, like you suggest. That was helpful.

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Rohov Dmytro

Wow! TDD is a nice way to express similar idea for focusing! It also keep you on track. Cool!

Thanks for sharing.

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Anthony Wayne Smith (AJ)

I have heard of this technique, but have yet to start using it. I've been doing 100 Days of Code to try and get myself in to the habit of learning code or practice what I know already. During this on going journey I have found that I jump around a lot and do not focus on any set projects. Full disclosure, I'm also new to web development. So I look forward to seeing more information about this technique. Any advice I can find is always nice.

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Gabriel

My big problem with the Pomodoro Technique is that sometimes I need to do tasks that keep me idle for a long time - like compiling my Java server or installing dependencies.

So I kept finding myself spending easily 5 minutes every Pomodoro doing.. nothing. And then it was break time.

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Rohov Dmytro

You remind me about this type of experience — when the break feels unjustified after waiting (the compiler etc).

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Neil Syiemlieh

I also feel like I've lost momentum after a pomodoro break. I really like the idea of intentionally interrupting to check yourself

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Rohov Dmytro

Keeping the Momentum is a big topic for me.

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Stephen Chiang • Edited

Exactly. I've given up the technique so many times because I hate losing the momentum. But you are right, it's most likely due to task switching / focus creeping.

I think I'll try it again... Just found this Pomodoro VS Code extension

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Rohov Dmytro

Nice extension. I do you Google Assistant for my timers. It's extremely convinient for me.

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hkievet • Edited

I didn't know what Pomodoro Technique was and this article could spend a paragraph at the top defining it or linking out to a resource to learn about it 🤷‍♂️ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Tec...

Thank you, however, for bringing to me an awareness of the existence of this technique.

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Rohov Dmytro

You point is totally valid! Thanks for putting link in the comment section!

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Charles Wood

Holy cow, this is my exact experience with pom! Only I haven't done the debugging part yet. This is a great insight, thanks for sharing it!