Has anyone worked with Pomodoro technique and found them really useful? I recently read about it online and I am intrigued. My technique is mostly brute-force (get-on-it-until-it-is-done), and I simply haven't found anything that beats this.
Should I use techniques like Pomodoro?
I actually tried it for a while, but the timer always interrupted me from the middle of my flow. So now I'm back in brute force get-on-it-util-it-is-done (and keep breaks where it feels like it). It wasn't a totally useless experiment though; I learned to make better to do -lists and keep them organized and prioritized.
Pure, scheduled Pomodoro might work for some people and for some tasks, but for me & programming it doesn't. Nevertheless, it's definitely worth trying. I think it might be especially useful if one has difficulties starting to do something; by timeboxing the first run (call it a "Pomodoro" if you wish) it's easier to just force yourself to start. But then, after getting into flow, it may be better to just follow the flow.