I have been stuck in a bit of my own rut lately due to various things but have been getting out of it this week - Mytomatoes.com is definitely helping!

I know there have been threads on this before but think it would be nice to have a new one - I'm interested in how many tomatoes people usually do in a day as it would be nice to have people to compare myself to! I generally aim for 10, but that is alongside a p/t job as well.

Maybe we could have a bit of tomato accountability as well? :-)

Natassia x

That's a very simple but very useful site. Thanks. I only started an hour ago so I've only done 2, but it's a good system if you need to force yourself into working. I think it depends what you're doing, but certainly if you are writing stuff up then it's a superb tool. I'll let you know how many I do tomorrow. I doubt I'll use it exclusively but we'll see.

I used my first one since March today. That was it, just the one.

I'm kinda trying to get out of a post-field work, new long-distance relationship, no-work, living-at-home-until-I-get-a-uni-place-sorted funk. I'm sure everyone's been through one of those.

I always find it most useful when I'm writing up. Every tomato I just put my new word count in. It works really well when you're writing new stuff, slightly depressingly when you're editing.

I used this technique for a while in the early days but then fell out of the habit. Then I rediscovered it again thanks to one of the threads on here the other day, and have now discovered that it's ideal for keeping me focused when I work from home where I tend to struggle to keep on task much more so than in the office (oh, the welcome distractions of washing dishes, feeding pets, etc!).

I do find that I don't always keep to time with it, eg I will carry on beyond the 25mins when I'm in the middle of something and it's going well, and will take longer breaks on occasion (don't 5 mins just go sooo quickly!), so my number of tomatoes/day fluctuates quite a bit and doesn't lend itself so well to comparisons.

Liking the idea of tomato accountability though - would be great to name a target number each morning and see how I get on... right, I will aim for 6 tomatoes before lunch today! (turkey)

I also use mytomatoes on and off- I can do lots and lots of tomatoes when I am just reading journal articles, but a lot less when I am actually writing! I also generally aim for around 10 tomatoes, 6/7 of which are usually before a late lunch, and I then go off tangent in the afternoon!

I do like the sound of tomato accountability! I will aim for 10 tomatoes today.

Also a recent convert to the technique. I have to admit 10 is quite a good day for me, which makes me wonder how much further I could be with the thesis if I actually did 7-8 hours a day.

Yes, lets start the thread!

Well I did 9 tomatoes yesterday, I wasn't really into my work at all. I have also only done 3 so far today, so I'm unsure whether I can achieve 10 today either!

I only managed 6 yesterday, but then I did have a physio appointment on the other side of town that ate a lot of time. I also tend to work longer than 25 minutes on occasion. Honest!

I managed 7 yesterday. I also work part-time.

I read about pomodoro technique ages ago, but only tried it out for the first time a couple of days ago after reading a post that mentioned mytomatoes.com on this site.

I have found it amazingly useful. I'm really bad at sitting at my laptop for hours, searching for new articles, but not really getting much writing done. Focusing on actually writing for 25 minutes at a time has really increased my productivity - plus it stops me from over-reading, which seems to be a real fault with me.

I wish I had used this from the beginning. I'm quite ashamed at what my concentration and workrate had actually dwindled to over the years. It's quite handy for spotting what times of the day are most productive for you, too. There are definite points when I would be better served getting up and doing something else.:$

======= Date Modified 22 Jul 2011 13:07:43 =======
I've done 2 so far, am aiming for 4 today. Easing myself in after a break and taking it easy because it's the summer... and I can!

p.s. am editing two peices of writing together.

Well this was my idea then I took ages to reply to it and admit how many tomatoes I had done! I did eight yesterday which was ok but not great. Aiming for eight again today; did four before work then hoping to do another four when I get home, soon hopefully.

I think it is best for writing up as I too put my new word count in the comments box each time, however I am editing at the moment so it feels like I'm not doing an awful lot in my tomatoes!

Thanks for all the replies - hopefully we'll be able to carry on the tomato accountability for a while!

Nx

Hi all, noob here :-)

I have just started using the pomodoro technique alongside David Allen's GTD. I'm finding it to be a pretty good combination.

I've been using software which I can recommend, Focus Booster, which is based on the pomodoro technique:

http://www.focusboosterapp.com/

Hope it helps!

If I remember rightly, Sue was the queen of mytomatoes, I think she said her record was about 26? but she usually did about 20 a day!!!

She used a chatroom called phinnished I think though - I used it once and I think it wouldbe quite useful, they basically all work together on their 25 mins and then chat in the 5 mins off.

I'd just like to say thanks to Stoll for posting the link to the 'focus booster' I installed it today and think I got more work done today than I've managed over the last 2 days! Since passing my first year upgrade I seem to have slowed down. I've been doing some data processing which is necessary but tedious and repetitive and I get distracted easily but I managed the equivalent of 10 tomatoes today and the processing is now finished. Now I can try and figure out what my graphs and stats show, the fun bit!

The best thing is that it is an app which can be used offline which is good for me because I'm not very disciplined when I have my laptop online. I purposefully don't have wireless at home and have to disconnect the modem from the desktop computer when it's not being used and plug the modem into my laptop so it takes a bit more effort to get online as I have to physically move between rooms. I'm just not very good at logging off and getting back to work though :$ so I also installed the 'stayfocusd' extension for google chrome which restricts internet access during working hours.

I have 'stayfocused' as well and think it is great, it really works for me, more than Leechblock did when I was on firefox. I do like the focus booster app and downloaded it today, but I like the fact that Mytomatoes allows you to keep a daily record of what you have done. Is there an option for that on focus booster at all?