2.6 a controversial classic - pomodoro timers
everyone loves to recommend a pomodoro timer (including me!) but this deceptively simple tool actually does NOT work for a lot of people, tasks, and brains. let's get into this controversial classic - and some alternatives - in this week's episode!
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If you've got a phone. If you've got a clock. If you've got a microwave, you can use this week's tool. Let's talk about timers.
📍 Welcome to Grad School is Hard, But... A Thrive PhD podcast. I'm Dr. Katy Peplin and this is a show for everyone who's doing the hard work of being a human and a scholar. And in season two, I'll introduce you to various tools that might make the hard stuff from writing to managing your time to taking care of your brain just a little bit easier.
And if you rate and review this podcast, by the end of the month, you'll be entered to win a free session from me. More details at the end of the episode. Now let's get into the good stuff. .
Timers are some of the most frequent advice given to anyone who's looking to manage their time a little bit more effectively. But in my experience, they're also some of the most nuanced tools. And some of the ways that many of our neurodivergent brethren also get left behind. So let's talk today about timers: when they work, how they work, how you might want to use them. And a couple of variations because having a sense of how much time is passing and what you're spending your time on can be really helpful.
And just because the first thing you try doesn't work for you doesn't mean that nothing will.
So first a definition. You might have, if you've ever hung out with me in the community or read any time management blog ever been introduced to something called the Pomodoro timer. The Pomodoro timer, which I'll link to it's full history in the show notes. It's basically a time management system where you have a timer that goes off for a set amount of time.
This usually is 25 minutes. You set a timer for 25 minutes, you've work in a focused way. Then you break, you have five minutes to do whatever you want, then you repeat it three or four times with a 15 minute break at the end of the sequence. This came into being, because somebody was trying to keep themselves on task in their kitchen. All they had was a tomato shaped timer that went up to 25 minutes. So the legend goes anyway. And so that's what they used. They would work for 25, break for five and then come back.
So Pomodoro timer is, are great. And the idea of a focus time, and then a break from that time, can be really effective. But if you think about the idea that this was invented in a kitchen, and the only reason that it's 25 minutes is because that's how long the timer was. Well, then you can kind of see why this maybe isn't an all purpose tool for everybody to use.
The traditional pom is 25 minutes. And I will be honest with you and say that I find that most of the time, 25 minutes is too short for me. And I often will do what I call long poms or long Pomodoros, which are 50 minutes of time to work. And then a longer break, a 10 minute break. These are great for writing.
I use them to record this podcast for instance, but I think that if you have experimented with poms and felt that the time was too short, try going longer. I don't recommend going much longer than 50 minutes because every hour you're going to want to rest your eyes. Get a sip of water, maybe walk around a little bit.
But something longer than 25 minutes, will help you get a little bit more into the flow for a deep focus task.
But I also want to share that Pomodoros don't work for me all of the time. I love them in the community. They are often a tool that I use to help myself get started during the day. There are certain tasks that truly would not get done without Pomodoros like admin tasks or scheduling appointments. They're a great container which is why I do continue to recommend them. But I do get burned out on them, just like everybody else. I have seasons where they're really helpful for me. And I have seasons whether or not. And that's a good note for all of the tools in this podcast. Sometimes they work for you and sometimes they don't.
And it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you or anything wrong with the tool. It's just like, sometimes you need a flat head screwdriver and sometimes you need a Phillips head. It might be the right solution for the task at hand, but it also might not be.
But I also want to be clear that there are definitely some patterns about what clients I noticed really do respond to Pomodoros and which ones really don't.
So let's talk about who I find the Pomodoros usually do not work for. I will be honest and say that the idea for this episode came from a thread that I saw on Twitter somewhere. That was like, what is the one piece of advice that has just never worked for you?
And it was just streams and streams of people in the comments saying Pomodoro timers have never worked for me. And you know what? I get it. If you are a person who is neurodivergent and I'm speaking, especially here to anyone who drops into flow. Or has trouble or challenges managing their attention.
This is my ADHD folks. This could be my AuDHD folks, my autistic folks. There are all kinds of brains that once they get stuck into a task, really respond negatively to being dragged back out of it. And there's perhaps nothing more arbitrary than a 25 minute timer going off and dragging you out of whatever it is that you've managed to be focused on.
So if you find that you really don't like being interrupted, pomodoro timers might not be for you. And in that situation, I would suggest that you experiment with something called FlowMadoro instead which has you set the timer more like a stopwatch instead of a countdown clock. You start at 0.0 seconds. And then you notice how long it takes you until you've either finished the task where you've gotten distracted. It could be 10 minutes. It could be five minutes, but you divide that by four and then you take that length of break. So maybe you work on your paper for an hour. You notice that you've drifted off into Twitter. You say, okay, I've reached the edge of my attention cliff. I'm going to take a break for 15 minutes and then come right back to it.
Repeating that same setting the timer and then taking a quarter long break again. This is a great way to notice how your attention waxes and wanes over the course of the day. And it's a great way to not artificially stop yourself in the middle of a thought just because the timer said t o.
But you might be a person that a Pomodoro timer could be really effective for. If you notice that you have a really hard time getting started. This could be getting started in the morning or after a lunch break or after teaching. A timer can be an excellent tool. Especially if you respond really well to time to based appointments. So if you are feeling relatively good at getting up, getting to your teaching, getting to your appointments on time, but then once you have some unstructured time, everything sort of goes to pot. Then I would recommend experimenting with a timer.
If not a traditional 25 minute, five minute Pomodoro, you experiment with at a smaller or longer piece of time as needed. But the idea is that you set a timer and that timer acts almost like a little mini appointment where you say, okay,
For the next 25 minutes, I'm going to try and work on this. And I find that that brain tantrum that's like, Ugh, I am so tired from teaching. And now I have to write for the next four hours that setting a smaller timer. Lets you say, I don't have to write for the next four hours. I just have to try writing for the next 25 minutes.
And it adds that time-based activation energy that'll help get you a little bit over the hump of I don't want to do this, or, oh, I'm tired. And into the flow. My brain is a championship tantrum-er, or it does not like to get started, but I find that even my most epic tantrums don't last longer than 25 minutes.
So if I set a timer for 25 minutes, and even if I free write my little heart out and I'm like, I hate writing. Writing is terrible. I never want to do it. My brain eventually gets that out of its system. And by the time that 25 minutes is up, I've either gotten stuck into the writing amazing or. Or I've pivoted to something else that probably also needs to get done. And that timer acts as a chance for me to check in and say, okay, is this actually what I want to be focusing on right now? Or do I want to move on and do something else?
The timer is just another tool to help you work intentionally. So, whether you're having it count up to measure how much you are actually focusing, noticing your trends and making sure that you take breaks to have food and drink and have water. Or you're using it to help you get started to help you jump into that cold pool timers, add boundaries around what can be a really overwhelming unstructured sense of responsibility and time and tasks for scholars everywhere. We all have too much to do and not enough time to do it. And a timer is just a concrete way to take that too muchness. And move it into smaller and smaller containers. To help you see which tasks might fit into the containers that you have.
And last but not least a special shout out to our review leaver. rmeaso. So which I will put into the show notes. You have won this months free session. So make sure that you email me or contact me on my website and we'll get that all set up for you. Thank you so much, everybody for listening, and I'm going to keep this giveaway going. Everybody who's already reviewed will still be entered. And thank you so much for spreading the word about this podcast.
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