[cbailey]

I tried a similar technique a year ago, and I had similar results. I found myself straying from the 25/5 by 5, 10 or more minutes.

Ultimately, it was beneficial because it forced me to focus on the tasks and how much time I was allotting to breaks.

Once you get the habits down, I would suspect the timer would be needed less and less. Similar to how people who count calories get used to it and know caloric values of what they're eating, so they eventually stop counting calories (or get sick and tired of trying to keep up with it).