How long are your rest gaps? 5 minutes is too short for me.
The goal is to not switch context. Social media is awfully bad in this.
If in work, I reply to Slack messages or message from family/friend- if any. They know to call in an emergency and not expect immediate reply to messages.
I have found drinking water and taking a quick stroll being the most effective pomodoro gap actvity. Although it is not always possible.
I’ll try some of these myself. Still haven’t found my ideal cycle times.
How do you fit emails and meetings into your schedule?
By scheduling task-specific pomodoro’s around meetings?
Do you use pomodoro cycles on email and other communication?
Say some urgent situation pops up which requires several emails to be exchanged. Does this throw off your schedule?
The key is to spend a significant amount of time in writing and formatting it. Think tens of minutes in what is roughly a five day period. This really works for me.
By that, I mean I am always aware what I need to do.
By no means I am in a perfect shape. I slack off sometimes, I don't do anything and waste some time.
2, Todos have no value in my life unless I block a chunk of time for tasks explicitly. I block some time for one task and I do only that thing at that time.
3, No social media outside of a 30 minute window per day. Not even when waiting in a queue, or Pomodoro rest gaps.
4, No-email/Slack blocks of 2 hours each. 30 minutes in special cases.
5, I plan my day the night before.
6, Habit-tracking. I plan to a handful of tasks everyday without fail like exercising, reading, and some work/study related stuff. I use a free app for this which does everything I want.
7, I keep a journal where I jot down my long-term, intermediate, and immediate goals. I like to think that it works.
I have tried a hundred things, and these work well.