pomodoreminder-slack
Send reminders for the end of a pomodoro
Pomodoro
The pomodoro technique has been highly successful (at least for me) at improving focus and time-on-task. The technique calls for an uninterrupted block of time (25 minutes) spent on a singular task, with no interruptions. This is followed by a 5 minute break. This 30-minute block is a "pomodoro" and every 4th pomodoro, a longer break of 15 minutes replaces the 5 minute break.
Problem
For me, I find that I have lots of thoughts related to, but not part of, the task at hand. For instance, while working on a functionality, I may recognize an opportunity for a refactoring that would be out of scope for the work I am doing but very valuable for the project at hand. In the traditional pomodoro technique I would lose these task-adjacents because I forget them by the end of the pomodoro.
Solution!
Slack has an exceptionally useful "reminder" function which will remind you (via Slackbot at the given time). This works perfectly for letting me push an idea out of band during a pomodoro, then return to it at during the break. Of course, I need to have Slack open to set up reminders and Slack is a giant distraction when open, so...what to do?
My solution is a small app, living on the desktop, which exists just to shoot properly-formed reminders to Slack's hook infrastructure. Since Slack isn't open, I don't get distracted. Since the reminders live in Slack (where I expect them), I don't lose the task.
The goal is to be as minimal as possible and ever-present, so that I can quickly remind future-me what to do, without compromising right-now-me's flow.
PomodoReminder is built proudly with Vedeu