Why I code in long stretches instead of pomodoro!
This article is purely my take on the pomodoro thingy, like why I code in longer stretches and stay away from productivity hacks like pomodoro. also why it's not meant for people whose job is focus intensive.
With that set, let's me take you through my experience with this thing.
Pomodoro is quite popular on internet, I've heard many people talking about it, mostly productivity gurus and self help experts, specially when you're talking about productivity, pomodoro is everywhere.
25 minutes of work, 5 minutes of break, and repeat.
It sounds structured, It sounds productive, and honestly, for many kinds of work it might be helpful.
But the thing is that I've personally tried it a lot when i was learning to code and was a sophomore, and I've realized something…
IT'S NOT FOR ME, NOT FOR SOMEONE WHO REQUIRES GOOD AMOUNT OF FOCUS IN THEIR WORK, NOT FOR DEVELOPERS LIKE US.
When I sit down to code, I'm not just "doing a task"
I'm…
- understanding the problem
- brainstorming through edge cases
- forming a mental model
- testing ideas in my head, keeping some and throwing some, etc
This thinking phase which is very crucial to understand things with better clarity can easily take more than 25 mins, and that's where Pomodoro starts to fall apart for me.
Just when we're close to clarity… when the solution is almost there… the timer ticks off
Break Time.
And this is the point where the context starts to fade, the mental stack we built collapses and usually after this you'll come back with vague ideas and…
you'll need to reconstruct, That reconstruction cost is real, and it adds up.
Coding has a concept we all recognize but rarely talk about enough… FLOW.
That state where:
- things start clicking
- decisions feel obvious
- code feels lighter
- you’re fully inside the problem
You can’t force flow, But you can definitely interrupt it.
For me, breaking focus every 25 minutes doesn’t feel like discipline, It feels like friction.
Now enough of pomodoro, let me share what worked far better for me, and guess what… It's the opposite approach.
"LONG, UNINTERRUPTED STRETCHES OF DEEP WORK!"
No timer running in the background, No artificial breaks.
I sit down and stay with the problem until…
- I reach a natural stopping point
- I’ve shipped something meaningful or solved a specific problem
- or my brain genuinely feels tired
Sometimes that’s 50 minutes, Sometimes it’s few hours. The difference is simple but important… The break follows the thinking… not the timer.
To be clear, I’m not anti-Pomodoro, It might be good for:
- shallow or repetitive tasks
- admin work
- getting started when motivation is low
But development is deep, focus-intensive work, and for that kind of work, I’ve found that protecting flow matters more than following a clock.
Ending my speech!
This is just my experience. Not a rule, Not advice carved in stone.
But if you’ve ever felt:
“I was finally getting into it… and then I had to stop” Maybe the problem isn’t your discipline. Maybe it’s the tool. Sometimes, the most productive thing a developer can do is sit longer and think deeper.