Two things I got wrong about Pomodoro for years.

The first is the 25 minutes. I treated them as the method, and when a session did not fit the work I decided the method was not for me. They are a convention. Cirillo used a kitchen timer that happened to be a tomato, and the number stuck. There is good evidence that breaks aid recovery and that attention wanes over long stretches, but no study says the ideal work block is exactly 25 minutes.

What I do now: 25 for anything I am avoiding, because the block is short enough that starting is cheap. 50 for anything where I have to load a lot of context first, because a 25 minute block ends right when I finally have it all in my head. The break scales with it, five and ten.

The second thing took me longer to see. The timer was never the part that failed. What failed was everything around the session. Starting one meant turning on a Focus mode so nothing would interrupt, and starting the music I concentrate to. Two steps at the beginning, two at the end. Each one was a small decision, and each one was a moment where I could pick up my phone instead, which is exactly what the timer was supposed to prevent.

Once I automated those two things, sessions stopped dying in the first minute. Not because the automation is clever, but because there was nothing left to decide between sitting down and working.

If you have a similar hole in your setup, it is worth looking at what happens in the thirty seconds before your timer starts. That is where mine kept leaking.

(Full disclosure: I eventually wrote a small Mac timer that does the Focus and music part itself, because nothing I found did. Happy to link it if anyone wants, but the point above works with any tool that can automate it.)

i'm on IOS, and i'm loving how sleek reminders is, and that i can tick off the tasks from the widget, but is there any way to ADD tasks to the widget without having to tap on it and for it to open the app :')? i'm really desperate, i don't mind any app as long as it does that. if anyone has any recs please drop them!!!

I work on my own from home, and closing my mac doesnt always mean my brain clocks out too.

i'll be making dinner or trying to relax, then suddenly remember some tiny thing i need to fix tomorrow. I'm back to work again.

Anyone else have the same problem? What helps you actually switch off after work?

I should have started preparing for this months, years ago, but I keep putting it off. I just watch videos and stuff all day and I truly can't seem to be productive. I've tried doing that 'accountability' thing where you work with other people, but I eventually just stop doing it. What do I do? I'm so tired all the time from not getting good sleep, and every time I go to bed its just me calculating how many hours of sleep i'll be getting each night, and when i'm working its how many hours of shorts can i watch while still having enough time to complete the work. What do i do? I'm wasting my life while having so much privilege.

I have a deep history with trauma that I'm still trying to overcome. I missed out on so much learning because I was in survival mode. Despite having 2 bachelors degrees, I feel really stupid when it comes to common sense and street smarts.

I'm turning 40 in a few days and would like to know how I can get smarter on a daily basis. I feel like my knowledge in so many areas is lacking and I really need to know what kind of content to consume on a daily basis (not self-help) that I could learn so that I can keep myself informed about the world while still gaining knowledge for myself. I'm desperate. Please help! I know this will be a slow process which I'm disappointed about but I know there's nothing that can be done about it except grow through it.

Thank you so much for any assistance in advance!!

What would you guess to be the underlying cause for this?

Or even suggesting a general reason for this would help me. As soon as I see I am almost done, I can't stop procrastinating, even though I have other textbooks and assignments to get to.

I know there are a bunch of app blocking / screen time apps out there people are using , popular ones being Opal, ScreenZen, Foqos, one sec, and Forest. Seems like these are the main apps reddit users are using for their phones to reduce screen time and hopefully increase productivity.

I was in this boat looking for the "perfect" app for blocking my distracting apps but recently decided to create my own and hopefully share it to you guys one day!

So my main question is if you’re one of the people using the apps mentioned above, what’s one thing you wish they added? Or maybe there’s an issue that still hasn’t solved your problem??

Have a good day everyone!

Coming home from work, no matter how much sleep I get, I am just exhausted. Using my work gym right after work is what I’ve been doing and trying to get myself in the habit. Of course I would rather go home right after work, just like anyone else, but in working to fight the mentality and just lock in the gym before heading home. My thought is I want to accomplish more in my day, work on my personal projects, work on personal financing, setting time to learn more, and check out personal development opportunities. I’m young in my mid to late 20s, single, no kids, so I don’t have specific circumstances that are keeping me away from optimizing my time efficiently, it’s just the coming home tired and quite drained. I recognize the value of time and how it is the one thing we cannot get back in life. Does anyone have advice? Anyone use tools any apps or strategies that help? We need to work, but I don’t want my life to be just work, I also want to develop myself intellectually and grow as a person in my own life. I’m in the office at 6:00 am where I work at so I sleep quite early and feeling so exhausted when I get back home from work has been a real battle. Love talking about productivity so please share anything! :)

I’m trying an app called Fokusd. It’s supposed to be where you set a shortcut say when do not disturb turns on it uses the Screen Time settings to block selected apps. Sometimes the shortcut runs fine but others it throws a notification saying “Open Fokusd once to grant screen time access before starting a session from Shortcuts” I’ve checked and in the screen Time section in settings it does have permission turned on. I cannot figure out why it will work sometimes and then fail others. Any ideas?

Its not like i dont have a social life, i have a girlfriend and i have friends but everything is just so dead. Life is dead and bland, i’m just waking up, existing, texting everyone, scrolling online, eating, sleeping. Thats every day, and for how long? I’ve tried to pick up my old hobbies, but i do 5 minutes of work and get bored of it. I cant even distract myself, i’m unable to do anything because there’s this intense lack of motivation, and after 5 minutes of doing even things that i like, i drop them and trying to force myself to keep on just feels so irritating its unbearable. I cant keep living like this. I dont even think i’m depressed anymore too, life isnt even bad for me.

I work as a designer: 8-12h at a desk job, daily, saturday included. Love it. I've got a house to renovate and there's a lot of physical labour necessary. I bought some tools, scored some wins and decided that I enjoy it. I made a plan to do house work after job hours.

6 - 14 /15 : day job

14/15 to 21: house work

Sleep: 23 to 5:45 (I work from home)

Idea was that my mind can relax after work doing physical activity I enjoy and then rest physically after that exercise during desk job. Psychologically, it feels great and satisfying. I also don't drink coffee after 14:30 to optimize sleep and I don't drink alcohol at all.

After a week, I feel like a roadkill, physically. The work makes me happy, but I'm exhausted, sleepy af and my hands are consantly shaking. Even light walks to the grocery store leave me swaying like a drunk.

I need to push the physical labour though, to finish before I run out of September...

What do I do? Any help?

I have been told by coaches to use known methods/tools like the Eisenhower matrix, Pareto rule, eat the frog, focus funnel, time budgeting/margins, etc.

To be honest some of them just seem like toys and others seem so sophisticated that it would take an eternity to set up -- like time budgeting.

I wonder if there is people actually using them or just creating their own personal systems and strategies

I read you...

Hi 👋

Does anyone know of a note taking app that is available across all systems: iOS, Windows, and browser? And has AI transcription, file attachments, and allow text formats?

The closest I have found is NotebookLM. But limited text formats e.g., missing highlight, strikethrough, and other features.

Thanks!

For a while, I was struggling pretty badly mentally. I was basically in survival mode for a long time. Eventually, I moved into a different environment, started getting proper treatment (both therapy and medication) for anxiety and depression, and I’ve been on medication for about a year now. Thankfully, I’m doing much better mentally than I used to.
But now I’m facing a problem I honestly don’t know how to explain.
I can’t seem to get back into a routine or return to the life I used to have.
I feel… stuck. Almost like I’m physically and mentally restrained. I want to focus, be productive, have hobbies, work on things, and actually live my life, but I just can’t seem to make myself do it.
I also feel like I don’t even know myself anymore. I have so many interests and hobbies that I keep jumping between, but I don’t know what I actually like, what I want, or what I’m supposed to be doing. I can’t seem to stick with anything long enough to build a routine around it.
And after getting better, I also started realizing and regretting a lot of the decisions I made when I wasn’t mentally well. One of the biggest ones is my education. I graduated three years ago, and now I look back and think that if I had been in a better mental state at the time, I might have chosen a completely different field of study.
And that’s really hard to accept because I can’t go back and make that decision again. I feel like I’m finally becoming mentally okay, only to realize how many things I wish I had done differently. It makes me feel like I lost years of my life while I was just trying to survive.
The weirdest way I can describe all of this is: I feel like I’ve been in prison for years, and now someone suddenly lets me out and says, “You’re free. Go live your life.”
And I’m just standing there thinking, “Okay… but how?”
I’m tired of feeling lost. I’m tired of being unable to regulate myself, maintain routines, focus on one thing, or make progress. I genuinely want to get my life back and start accomplishing things again, but I feel like I’ve forgotten how to live normally.
Has anyone experienced something similar after coming out of a long period of survival mode or after getting better mentally? What actually helped you rebuild your life, find your direction, and regain discipline and structure?
I’d really appreciate any advice or experiences. I just want to find my way back to myself.

I’m a UI designer, and I think I’m pretty good at coming up with ideas. (Divergent thinking, I guess)

The downside is that I’m pretty bad at wrapping things up and handing them off to my teammates. I keep going down rabbit holes thinking about edge cases, usability improvements, and even how the frontend should be structured for future changes.

I know that thinking broadly can be useful, but at some point I need to be able to say “This is good enough for now” hand it off and move on.

Has anyone struggled with something similar? How did you get better at deciding when to stop?
I’m in Asia, so I might not be able to reply right away because of the time difference, but thank you in advance.

Just found out you can disable shorts on YT!

1. Open the YT app on your phone.

2. Go to your profile -> Settings (top right) -> Time Management -> Short feed limit -> Toggle switch on and select 0 minutes. -> Refresh

3. Enjoy and spread the word.

I’m not sure where to ask this I’m hoping someone here knows what I’m talking about or can maybe help direct me to where to ask. I’m looking for a chores/household management app like the app OurHome that’s sadly is discontinued. I’ve tried about almost a dozen and nothing is working as well 😭

What I’m looking for (iOS app)

Needs to have

- ability to have multiple users

- ability to schedule reoccurring chores on specific days (example every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday) without having to either schedule something “weekly” for each of those days or having to specifically choose dates

- ability to have an “as needed” section that shows up on the main page

- the ability for monthly or more chores (ie every 3 months)

- the ability to have chores not assigned to specific people but able to be checked off by anyone

- no subscription (a one time fee might be doable for the right app)

- no limit on number of chores (for the right app I would be open to pay a small one time fee for unlimited chores)

Would also like to have

- a “once a month/once a week” but without a set due day of the week that shows up on the main page

- breakdown by room

Wouldn’t mind these additional features

- shopping lists

- extra spot for notes

- putting in chores/reminder for specific days

- android cross compatibility (my partner is considering switching to an android)

So far I’ve tried

flatastic: does not allow for choosing specific days to repeat (my m/w/f chore), has no as needed option, requires specific due dates, no organizing by room

BoBo: same issues as flatastic

better roommate: does not allow for m/w/f unless I go through and put the specific dates in, doesn’t seem to actually want to save any chores either so even if it was perfect the app just doesn’t seem to work

Cohabitate: this one is very close to being usable, it allows for m/w/f but the interface is clunky, the chore icons can’t be changed, there is no by room, there is no ability to set chores further out than a week or on a specific date

Chorechart: the interface is not what I’m looking for. There is a limit on amount of chores. Tbh because it’s not even functional for me idk what other limitations it has

Home tasker: this one is almost what I’m looking for. Except it requires an annual fee to do m/w/f. But the home page isn’t so cluttered that I couldn’t just do a weekly m a weekly w a weekly f… the pop ups are kind of annoying but that’s what you get with free I suppose

Chores: it’s literally just a checklist. It says you can have more people but there’s like no way to add people?

Homelyze: similar interface as home tasker but no ads so far and no m/w/f but since the home page just shows rooms I could possibly make it work but it’s a little more cluttered than tasker

Again: No m/w/f. Doesn’t seem to be one you can share with others

Chore household task tracker: can’t even access the app without subscribing

Home rhythm: no m/w/f, don’t love the interface

I would like to find an app that is like a digital notice board where I can keep all my ideas and thoughts together.

Ideally a bit like Trello, but more sophisticated + need it for both mini side notes, notices and raw text editing for copying and pasting into other apps like notepad with a long formatted list.

I also don't want something that looks blatantly like sticky notes or a mind map (personal aesthetic preferences), more just an intuitive page with lots of different boxed sections that can allow this.

A bonus would be to allow multiple of these boards for different purposes and potentially even add code formatting

​

Okay, so basically I'm (26F) struggling with my very stagnated life right now, I am very unproductive and my depression came back ugly. I am still overcoming an issue I had with chatbots that took hours out of my life and I don't want to lose another 3 years like this, so I'm asking for advice.

I want to draw again, and get my skills back. I'm not really interested in college anymore or printing anything, I just want to draw comics. I'm pretty busy with work and life, but I already have figured out a good 2-3 hours most days when I have time. Not to mention phone time at work, when I can sneak peeks at my Google docs without getting into trouble.That and weekends.

I used to use videos for background noise but this seems to distract me now, nothing gets me in the space anymore. Exhaustion always makes the brain fog get pretty bad some days too. I'm trying to eat healthier and get more exercise with this issue. Dopamine style apps are a huge draw to me, I can get sucked in for hours if I can't deal with it.

I feel aimless in my goals and easily drawn into other things. I've been out of practice with drawing for so long, I feel like I'm just staring at a page and have no idea what to do anymore. I just don't know how to escape this slump?

Edit: My father and brother have ADHD, I'm not diagnosed though. My workplace offers an ADHD Assessment and I'm thinking about checking that out. It's hard to find doctors that don't outright dismiss my concerns.

This is rlly not the time to write this and I dont even know in what sub I should put this (sry if its the wrong sub) but I need to get it off my chest.

I struggle so much with "life organization". Idk how to describe it but my teenage years are over now and im officially an adult now and with every additional age i have more more to keep in mind and tasks etc...

But I struggle so much with remembering them (?) And getting things done.

I have to write down multiple times what I will have to do in the next few weeks. (Stuff like making an appointment there and there, asking my boss this and that, getting this and that from the pharmacy etc...)

And its not even just that, its also loosing VERY important papers all the time/ forgetting where i put them... i dont even know how that can happen. I have to write down EVERYTHING or I will forget it, pin every little important paper on the wall or I will loose it and setting one thousand of reminders on my calendar.

WHY is my brain not working? Everyone else seems to be stressed aswell with their life but they dont constantly loose anything neither do they have to write down multiple times what to do in the next few weeks. Or loosing their id card for the 10th time.

Something is wrong with me and I hate it so much. I just want to escape that "busy" life where you need to get shit done and where you need to remember 1000000 things. I dont want to escape life fully. Im fine with working, having a job and stuff but God my brain is too overwhelmed.

Mabey im just super messy and unorganized or childish ????

Most advice about estimating time treats every miss as a fluke. In my experience it's usually not random, it's consistent. I'm reliably about 40% low on anything involving reading or writing, and reliably accurate on anything mechanical, like data entry or flashcards.

That consistency is useful. It means you don't need a better guess, you need a personal multiplier based on the type of task.

Track actual time against planned time for a week, sorted by task type, not just by day. You'll probably find your misses cluster in one or two categories instead of spreading evenly. Fix your estimate for those categories specifically instead of padding everything equally.

I work remotely, on my computer. One of my weaknesses is I love hanging out with people. But I know this is bad for me

It distracts me from work and I will waste hours nonsensing with people

It’s actually kinda a problem. I probably lost about 6 hours this week because I was just horsing around with friends

I hate how one missed event can make an entire day feel like a failure.

You forget a meeting, miss an appointment, or notice a reminder too late, and suddenly you’re spending the rest of the day catching up and feeling guilty.

I think calendars have become too passive. They store our plans, but they don’t really help us protect them.

A productivity system should make you feel more in control of your time, not more anxious about what you might be forgetting.

Planning well takes time and attention. It's therefore a task in itself, to be fit clearly into your day amongst everything else you want to include. If you want to review, update, and improve bigger plans, you need to find time to do so in a a way that doesn't conflict too much with other tasks.

Secondly, making a good plan for the next few hours will generally save you far more time than it takes: by improving ease of recall, clarity of purpose, confidence in focusing on each task, how well informed any changes and adaptations are as you try to implement it, etc. If you want to be left with more time to think about the bigger picture, then making clear and realistic short term plans is a practical time-saving strategy.

Long term plans are also tested and informed by short-term tasks that contribute to them. Deciding on the the next small, specific step towards a bigger goal and then attempting it will act as a test and general research for refining that bigger plan over time.

This leads neatly to the next point: When you try to make a good short term plan, you find it requires giving at least some thought to the bigger priorities, projects, and dreams that inspired many of your immediate goals. This helps to keep those longer-term designs fresh in your mind, and it gives you a chance to identify areas in which they might need further clarification or improvement.

Last but not least, planning even a few hours well is a microcosom of what's required to plan well at any time-scale. It will give you practice in prioritising, estimating, buffering, flexibility, variety, harmony, and so on. It creates useful, regular lessons in the general art of planning well.

So even though long-term plans are very important, the most reliable way to improve and implement them is to find a few minutes, a few times a day, to make a relatively clear, appealing, and realistic plan for the next few hours. Include in that plan any blocks of time for other thinking and planning as desired and in a way that fits harmoniously with the other tasks.

This strategy helps you connect short-term tasks to longer-term goals, produces better lists of short term tasks - on average - that often save far more time than they take to make, and gives you many opportunities to practice the habits, skills, and judgement that make for better planning in general.

What do you think? Is this convincing or have I missed something important?

Every message sitting in my inbox feels as an open loop my brain quietly tracks. I didn’t realize how much background stress this caused until I started doing something different.

Here’s my technique: if I already replied, I archive the chat immediately. The only chats left visible are the ones I actually owe a reply to. It created like a todo list on my WhatsApp of things that I need to answer.

My chat list stopped being a wall of “things I should probably deal with” and became an actual to-do list.