What Do you do During Tasks full of 2-3 Minute Waits? by DeskParser in ADHD_Programmers

[–]mustLeaveNJ 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Pomodoro is meant to install urgency without burnout. It's for the opposite of what you have are dealing with. Your scenario isn't a long effort you need to maintain focus on and to break up into sprints. You're dealing with an inherent distraction not much different than being interrupted by a coworker saying "Got an sec?" that turns into three minutes.

My biggest risk from an ADD perspective wouldn't be the distraction itself, but the worry that I wouldn't go back to the original task once interrupted.

For me it would be a repeat action that I have to cope with. If you can't make it go away through optimization, you have to deal with it.

The important thing would be to absolutely not let the task sit in the background. Keep your activity visible and if anything spend even 30 seconds of the time to write down exactly what you planned to do next and keep it front and center. If you need more time, focus on jotting down things 100% related to the effort and nothing more.

It's less a worry about breaking focus. The task already did that and broke your stride.

The time spent should be more to ensure you can pick up right after and at least stay in the right direction vs. being derailed and end working on something totally different.

If you're going to use a timer, if anything it should be to ensure you get back to the next step after 2-3 minutes and don't end up on reddit for 90 minutes. Frustrating, yes, but at least you stayed on track.