Does the Pomodoro Method Actually Work? Kinda

I'm a big productivity nerd. Now, I'm not the most productive person in the world. In fact, I would argue that I'm one of the least. At least it feels that way most days where I just I'm not very productive. I I spend a lot of time on YouTube and Tik Tok and Instagram when I really really shouldn't. So, but I do have a shall we say an interest in productivity content. I spend more time watching other people talk about productivity than being productive. Or at least it seems that way sometimes. So I enjoy going on YouTube watching people tell you how to be more productive. It's a silly thing to do, but it's something that I definitely do. But one of the things you see on Productivity YouTube is the Pomodoro method. Now, I don't know if I'm pronouncing that right, but basically the idea is that you work for a set amount of time, you take a break, you go back, work for the same amount of time, you take a break, you do this over and over again till your task is done. And the idea is that you set your attention span to a shorter amount of time. Instead of saying, you have to do this thing over a course of 8 hours and it's just, you know, a slog to kind of get through. You do it in little chunks. You dedicate a short attention span to your task, take a small break, and then come back. The idea is very attractive to a lot of people who are, shall we say, of my nature where the your attention span is just not that long. I get distracted by shiny things quite often. I I've talked about how I often have multiple things going on at once. I'm watching a YouTube video. I'm doing something for work. I'm doing a, you know, a YouTube script or I'm, you know, an outline or I'm writing a blog post. All these things at the same time. My attention span is scattered. It's one of the reasons why when I talk into a camera like this one, I tend to ramble and often times I have two thoughts that go different directions. You know what I mean? It's it's very weird. It's a conversational style that doesn't work for a lot of people, but it it it's just the way that it happens to me. Like I go on tangents every once in a while and that's what I do. So, I like the idea of being able to to time myself using the Pomodoro method where I just, you know, I set my focus for 15 minutes, take a 5-minute break, do the same thing over and over again. The idea being that I could then be more productive because of that method, but it doesn't work for me. Now, far be it from me to say anything about my willpower, but my willpower has never been very good. So, I tend to when I go down the distracted nature of my personality, I get into rabbit holes. So, if I'm, you know, I I'll on my 5-minute break from my Pomodoro thing, I'll go to YouTube, which I probably shouldn't do, but I do anyways, and I will watch a video, and then I'll watch another video, and all of a sudden, the timer thing has long since been forgotten, and I'm just in a YouTube downward spiral for two hours just, you know, watching cat videos or, you know, the latest thing YouTube has been showing me is clips of Justified. It's a TV show. It's it's it's fantastic. I've watched all the episodes, but now I'm watching the clips on YouTube for whatever reason. Just I just do that for, you know, and it just I get one right after another and it's basically like I'm watching the show again. I'm binging but in clip form on YouTube. It fits my attention span. So I do this Pomodoro thing, but when I take the breaks, I don't follow the the the break time. I just get into other things. you know, maybe I'll move on to another thing that I got to do for uh the channel or whatever, and all of a sudden, the thing that I was supposed to be focusing on has been moved on. So, the Pomodoro thing just doesn't work for me. And part of it is because of the willpower thing. A part of it, though, is that I've never been really good at focusing on just one thing at a time. I I like I said, I I have multiple things going on at once. Some of them for, you know, frivolous reasons, some of them for for work. as as you know as I do work and it's just you know it's the way that I thrive. I get my stuff done. I've always been good at getting stuff done eventually but I when I force myself to just look at one thing and do that for half an hour then take a break. I don't thrive in that environment. So Pomodoro just has never worked for me. So, what I've found myself doing is something of a variation where I will sit and do my multiple things for kind of 30 minutes or whatever and then take a break. What I've tried to do is filter out the frivolous nature of my wandering mind and just focus on the two or three things that I'm actually supposed to be doing for the Pomodoro time. So, say for example, if I'm writing a blog post, I'm outlining a video or I'm doing something else that I have to do. I'll do those three things for that 30 minutes. It does and and I don't force myself to do one or the other. I just do what I normally do. I'll write a few sentences in my blog post. I'll I'll do a couple notes in my notes for a a video or whatever. And then I'll take the break. during the break times then I will do the frivolous stuff where you know I'll go to the YouTube videos or watch a cat you know whatever you know I'll spend a couple minutes on TikTok if I want to rot my brain just a little bit more thing I've added is be is trying to ensure and this is the harder part that I don't go into those downward spirals into YouTube during the break times I keep the timer which is which is right here I actually bought a timer and it just you know I set it for 5 minutes I take the break I'll do whatever I want to do I can e I can get up and move around. I can do the thing on on Tik Tok or Instagram or whatever and then I'll go back to the stuff that I was working on during the work time. So, Pomodoro doesn't work for me in the traditional fashion. It just never has. But this way has gotten me to do some extra things and it feels more productive than I was before simply because I'm I'm I've kind of separated out the work stuff from the fun stuff a little bit more than I ever had before. I don't know if the nature of Pomodoro has actually caused that or if it's more of the separated nature of the stuff, but it has worked a little bit for me so far and I think that that's a good thing. Now, as I said at the beginning of the video, I'm a productivity content consumer. So, if you do a video on a brand new method of being more productive, I'm probably going to watch that thing and I'm going to try it. So, in traditional matte fashion, none of this stuff ever sticks around for very long. So, you know, may maybe because it doesn't work or maybe it does work and I just, you know, don't do it, which is a thing. So, will this Pomodoro Ma fashion actually stick around? I don't know. We'll have to wait and see. I doubt it given my previous attempts at being more productive in a system mass systematic fashion, but we'll see. So, that's it for this one. I know it wasn't a very Linuxy topic or at at all. So, I apologize for that. So, I hope I didn't bore you too much. But, if you have thoughts on this, you can leave those in the comment section below. I'd love to hear from you. You can follow me on Mastadon. That link will be in the video description. You can support me on Patreon at patreon.com/theinxcast. There you'll find a weekly exclusive podcast where I just basically chat in front of the microphone for about 10 to 15 minutes just rambly about things. So if that's the type of thing that's interesting to you, hit me up on Patreon or on YouTube members. You can get that in either place. So thank you so very much for watching. Thanks to everybody who does support me on Patreon YouTube. You guys are all absolutely amazing. Without you, the channel just would not be anywhere near where it is right now. So thank you so very very much for your support. really truly do appreciate it. You can get this awesome hat along with all sorts of other merchandise at shop.delinscast.org. Thank you so very much if you've done that before or if you plan to do that in the future. Thank you so very much. Thanks everybody for watching. I hope you have a wonderful day. I'll see you next time.

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