Adjustable Tomato Lengths?

[wc8]

Is it possible to adjust the length of a tomato? Ideally, work lengths per project or tag would be nice, eg. 50 minutes for writing and 20 minutes for housekeeping.

I realize this is not official technique, and I understand if you don't wish to change it. However, I suggest it for two reasons:

• certain cases in which one wishes to time work and breaks where 25 minutes would not be appropriate. For example, doctor's orders: 15 minutes of exercise a day. After that, a break would be in order, before moving on to the next work job.
• work/break needs can be an individual thing. Some need shorter work periods as they begin training themselves to concentrate. Some find a different rhythm suits their concentration powers better for certain work, too short and they waste time recapturing the train of thought; too long and the brain starts losing efficiency/clarity of thought.

I found tomatoes.es via habitrpg.com's chrome extension, and I like it. Thank you for the site.

[potomak]

Thanks for the feedback, let's see what users think about this issue.

[wycats]

I would love this feature as well. I find that adjustable work time and break time can be very helpful for finding an optimal balance when pairing vs. soloing.

[potomak]

I'm a little bit skeptic about this feature.

Sometimes I find myself in the same situation and my solution is

• when I close a task before the pomodoro's end I start a new task or occupy the remaining time with soft work (documentation, project management) or I just discard the pomodoro.
• when I need more time I just reset the break timer and I start a new pomodoro right away.

Cons

• I think if you use Tomatoes with customizable time slots you're just using a timer and a time tracker loosely based on the pomodoro technique.
• Tomatoes has very few mandatory configuration, just sign in and track your pomodoros, that's it. I'm trying to follow the principle of convention over configuration, moreover the convention is dictated by the philosophy underlying this tool.

Anyway I really like this issue and its meaning for the project.

I like it because It's coming from users. It's one of the first possible features I thought about but I didn't even put it on this issues list because this way I was forcing myself to follow the pomodoro technique.

Notes

• @wc8 I'd really like when you say work/break needs can be an individual thing because you're talking about habits. This makes me think about a system that should learn from their users' habits. A couple of days ago I was thinking about a way for the system to learn user's habits from untracked time, like the time that occurs between the end of a pomodoro and the moment you save it, or the time between the end of a break and the start of a new pomodoro. What do you think about this?
• @wycats I didn't know you were using Tomatoes! I'm a big fan of your work, this is a sufficient reason to start a wycats-is-using-tomatoes branch where I'll put this feature only because you asked me for it.

[wc8]

I'm curious about the way for the system to learn from user's habits. What did you have in mind?

[StanLindsey]

I specifically want this system because I want to use Ultradian rhythm as I find Pomodoros to be way too short and the breaks actually interrupt my work. I love everything else about tomato.es.

Maybe instead of having complete customisation either A. a global tomato size change or B. a selection between different types, e.g. Pomodoro and Ultradian. This would suggest people should pick one and stick to a rhythm that suits them without becoming just a timer for different tasks.

[Cubox]

I really need this feature. This is not for make some Pomodoros shorter than others, but I have concentration problems, and I can only focus for 10 minutes. The 25 minutes are way too long! Just make an option where we can put the lenght of Pomodoros and breaks and I'll (and others) will be happy :)

[vrybas]

@Cubox- I know what you're talking about. I had the same concentration problems when I was starting with Pomodoro Technique. As I remember correctly, Francesco Cirillo in his book mentioned he was starting with 10 and even 5 minute Pomodoros (at his college years). And later, after gaining some experience and reading of some studies about human brain, decided to make a 25 minutes canonical.

When I was starting, each Pomodoro seems very very veeery long. I could barely focus for 10-15 minutes. Now (after a few years practicing Pomodoro) each Pomodoro seems to me very very short. I'd rather worked on my task for hours without even moving around, than take this silly breaks, right?

There's a lot of reasons to keep Pomodoro to 25 minutes. The two main reasons for me is:

• Body is body and brain is brain. They need a rest. You can have a super productive Flow for a few hours, but then spend the rest of the day recovering and doing low-quality job. Especially when you miss your breaks while pairing, @wycats. Pairing, in my experience, is much more exhausting than solo work.
• If you can vary Pomodoros and breaks length, if the Pomodoro is not solid, in the end - you start cheating. You're leaving a possibility for you to say: "Well, It's just 15-minute Pomodoro now, not 25. Let's stop it and take a Twitter break!"

However, there are some reasons for this feature to be implemented. But I would like to see it as less dynamic as possible. You have to go to your settings and make changes there. And Pomodoro length options should be limited. I would say

• 15
• 25
• 40 (not sure about this one)

What do you guys think?

[StanLindsey]

I am fine with the selection of different levels over complete freedom. It allows balanced rhythms to be selected (Mini Pomodoros, Pomodoros, Ultradian etc )

Personally 25mins just feels to short for me; it takes about that long for me to actively get in involved in the work or get a sense of flow. I've been using the Ultradian Rhytmn for my work projects manually for a while now because of this.

I understand the need for breaks but with the increased work cycle I appreciate the break more. Your comment of people giving up because the 15min Pomodoros are short is the exact thing that happened to me with the 5min breaks; I might as well work for 5min and into the next Pomodoro instead of stopping my flow. A 40/90min work to10/20min break gives me much more time to both work and actually make use of a decent break.

I think letting people customise their work cycle is a big benefit to the flexibility of tomato.es and will in turn increase its usablity for smany people. I understand the focus towards pomodoros but at the end of the day is the application not about productivity and not restriction?

/2cents

[StanLindsey]

http://www.marinaratimer.com/

Adjustable Pomodoros, though doesn't come with as much of the stats & tracking as tomato.es.

[TheJoeSchr]

How is this feature coming along? marinatimer.com sadly hugs way more cpu power than tomato.es, so it would be really appreciated... thx!