This reminds me of what is probably a similar concept, the idea that "successful" people don't have todo lists, they schedule time in their day to solve problem

This reminds me of what is probably a similar concept, the idea that "successful" people don't have todo lists, they schedule time in their day to solve problems. A todo list could be seen as a set of "goals", whereas a time slot could be seen as a system, which has no "success" criteria, just a period of time where effort is exerted on a problem. I am constantly trying and failing at this. I dunno what it is, but the little demon in my brain loves to see a schedule, miss it intentionally, and then go, "see? nothing bad happened!" Pomodoro helps a bit, but it feels arbitrary, and often I forget that I'm supposed to stop at 25 minutes (which I guess is good), so I'll be like 2 hours in on a project before realizing I was supposed to take a series of 5 minute breaks. The problem with this is it ruins the credibility of Pomodoro for me, so next time I'm finding it hard to start a thing, I don't think of Pomodoro. I ramble about all of this because I want to highlight how real and permeating this is, as a problem, and I doubt I'm alone in this.