[amanuel]

This reminds me the Pomodoro Technique. http://www.pomodorotechnique.com/

I bought a pomodoro iphone app and tried it for about a week or so, alas 25 mins was just too short for me.

I generally find 45/20 to be about right balance for me. I now use Vitamin-R (Mac App) to track time/goals.

[silentbicycle]

I made a similar timer for Emacs - (http://github.com/silentbicycle/zwiebel). You can set the minute ratio.

[stoney]

I generally save the Pomodoro technique for when I've got something I really need to do but really don't want to do. The shortness of the 25 minutes can be quite useful in those situations.

Sometimes I find the shortness of 25 minutes blocks of time works well as a kind of challenge - "holy crap, only 2 minutes to go... got to finish..."

[kacy]

I'm currently using Concentrate (http://getconcentrating.com), and I love it. Checking out Vitamin-R tonight! Thanks for the suggestion! :-)

[guynamedloren]

Wow, that looks amazing. Website blocker and everything. Now that I see it, that just seems like such an obvious solution. Why am I not using this already?

Just looked closer at the rocket company and software, and they do awesome work.

[mistermann]

Looks great.....but there doesn't seem to be anything similar for windows.

Selective blocking of the web (HN, reddit) would be important.

[steveklabnik]

I've been trying this with http://focusboosterapp.com/ . It's pretty solid.

[johnnyjustice]

According the pomodoro technique pdf "we’ve come to consider the ideal Pomodoro as 20 – 35 minutes long, 40 minutes at the most. Experience shows that the Pomodoro Technique works best with 30-minute time periods" I now have leveled up my pomodoro to the half hour mark, it does wonders.