[al_borland]

I thought one of the things the pomodoro timer was for was to help people start; “it’s only 25 minutes”.

Once starting, if you’re in flow, just keep going.

Starting is usually the hardest part for me, so the pomodoro method is a nightmare, because it greats more start times. Not forcing the break if things are going well helps.

Having the window go black would drive me insane. If I’m on a train of thought and my screen blacks out, I would need a notebook to frantically write down where my head was at and what I was doing when it went black. Then I’d spend the first 10 minutes of the next block trying to get back to where I was mentally.

I thought the idea of an hourglass would be better, to try and work for at least X minutes. If things are going well, the hourglass silently ends and I could keep going. If I’m having trouble, I could see the hourglass is finished and take a break, then try again. I tried this briefly, but the sand kept getting stuck, which I found problematic. I supposed pomodoro software without an alarm would do the same thing.

[kentich]

> Having the window go black would drive me insane.

It is too easy to ignore the timer, that's why I think forcing breaks is a good idea. In the app I built for this, you can remove black screen if you really want but in an inconvenient way so that it is not too easy.

[al_borland]

Do you at least give yourself a warning, so you can find a natural stopping point? Maybe flashing the screen 2 minutes before the time is up, and then fade to black over those 2 minutes.

How easy a timer can be ignored depends on how annoying the timer is. If it's loud and doesn't stop, it would be hard to miss.