Personally the only method I've ever found that reliably works for me is to have a rough idea of what I want to tackle the next day, then first thing in the mor

Personally the only method I've ever found that reliably works for me is to have a rough idea of what I want to tackle the next day, then first thing in the morning after a good cup of coffee I open up notepad and attempt to plan out the things I need to do for the rest of the day. I try as hard as I can to break them up into as many individual tasks as possible. Then through the rest of the day I implement them. Those first few hours in the morning are typically when I'm at my most mentally able to come up with good solutions for whatever I'm doing and the rest of the day I find it relatively easy to follow the plan. In terms of pomodoro I use the opposite method, I don't time myself when I'm working on individual tasks from the list, instead as soon as I finish one I give myself 10 mins before starting the next. My mind absolutely refuses to change context too quickly, it's almost as if I have to go defocus my mind on reddit or HN/youtube for 10 mins before it'll suddenly snap back to the next task. But I'm a lifelong chronic procrastinator, I sometimes think I'm the equivalent of a runner who's trying to run a marathon in 100 meter sprints... I'm productive enough in my own terms :) I get things done and mostly meet deadlines.