Pomodoro + reflection
The Pomodoro technique gives you a timer to startfocused work. But a timer alone doesn't change how you spend your time. The missing half is a five-second reflection at the end of each block: what did I actually do, and was it worth the hour? Pairing the timer with that review is what turns Pomodoro from a stopwatch into a practice.
What Pomodoro does well
The classic technique — 25 minutes of focus, a short break, repeat — is great at one thing: getting you started and protecting a block from interruption. That's real value. But at the end of the 25 minutes, the standard technique just says “take a break.” The information about how the block actually went evaporates.
Add the review
- Run the timer. Pick 25, 50, or 60 minutes. Focus until it rings.
- Write one sentence. Before the break, note what you did — honestly.
- Grade it. Green, amber, or red. Then take the break you earned.
The review costs five seconds and does two things the timer can't: it creates a record you can look back on, and it makes the next block start with a tiny bit more intention.
Why the reflection compounds
One graded block is trivia. Twenty of them is a pattern: you notice that your “deep work” mornings are actually amber, or that the block right after lunch is where the red lives. You can't fix what you never measured. The reflection is the measurement.
Making it effortless
The friction is remembering to review. Your Hours Are Numbered handles that: it runs the Pomodoro timer, chimes at the boundary, and opens a one-line prompt to grade the block — then fills your day and month with color so the pattern is impossible to miss.