I believe the following bit about the pomodoro technique is a bit underinformed: "Take the pomodoro technique (45 minutes work, 15 minutes slacking off for bei

I believe the following bit about the pomodoro technique is a bit underinformed: "Take the pomodoro technique (45 minutes work, 15 minutes slacking off for being a good boy) – what they’re really trying to say is “be disciplined for just 45 minutes – you can manage that, can’t you?” That’s a lot like Joel’s advice to “be funny” when we write - it sounds great but leaves out the important bit, like: what can we actually do when we start getting distracted?" The breaks are neither slacking nor rewards for being a good boy - they are for preparing oneself for the next high focus period. And the original pomodoro paper (free pdf, google it) provides quite a lot of advice about dealing with distractions. Last but not least it's not 45/15 but rather 25/5, which makes a difference.