I was perfectly happy a few months ago. I believed I was beginning to evolve into my final form: “Grumpy Old Man.” Now I’ve learned all this stuff about “Executive Inertia” and “ADHD,” which I have also read is every “Grumpy Old IT Guy” origin story since COBOL. Great. So now, instead of being a seasoned professional with battle scars, I’m a case study. I just thought I was burned out. You know, the normal kind. The kind where you learn a new language, framework, or “best practice” every six months, and someone decides you need to redo all of that work with 75% more Ruby or React or YAML.
However, as I learned last weekend, I’m not burned out from learning new languages. I love learning new languages. I sat and refactored my favorite old VB app for over twelve hours and forced myself to go to bed I was having so much fun. It was smooth. The problem is that all the issues from previous experiences that go unaddressed in the next take the form of “start friction,” which I am averse to, just as I love people, but can easily avoid starting things with the same enthusiasm I bring to dating. Which is to say: theoretically open, emotionally exhausted, and already planning my exit. Seriously, never date me.
So, despite being more likely to poke fun at trendy life hacks with stupid names than to give them credit, something had to be done about the master bathroom, which has had a pile of cleaning chemicals in it for six months now, and the yard, which has pockets of weeds that probably have Viet Kong in them that don’t know the war is over. Seriously, my kitchen floor gets mopped regularly, and my counters could pass a restaurant-level health inspection. The guest bathroom is usually a B+/A- if you drop by unexpectedly. There’s baggage from being trapped in a room with 40 different chemicals, not to mention sweat, bugs, and allergic rashes from yard work.
So, I’ve started experimenting with the “Pomodoro technique.” The idea is you do the unpleasant thing for just 25 minutes. Just 25 minutes, it doesn’t have to get done, but it has to get your focus for 25 minutes. Then you reward yourself with a 5-minute break. Repeat four times, and you get a 15-minute break. I’ve come to the conclusion that this feels very on-brand for my brain most of the time. Other times, it’s basically a tomato-shaped intervention.
Pomodoro isn’t really about productivity. It’s about starting the thing, which, to my mind, having spent decades building a career out of thinking, solving, translating, and occasionally overthinking everything into a philosophical crisis, is actually the hardest part. The work is simple. The thinking is simple. I have processes for that. Taking the first step up a mountain that you know is going to give you pain and possibly break you is the hard part.
The annoying little tomato timer, in its very structured, passive-aggressively bossy way, fixes all that with the subtlety of an egg timer and the emotional tone of your mother giving the “How do you know you don’t like broccoli if you’ve never even tried it?” speech. The tomato says, “You don’t need to do the whole thing. Just do it for 25 minutes.” Somehow that works.
What’s really weird is that there are clearly two versions of me.
Version one is a card-carrying member of the 5 AM Writer’s Club. I actually like waking up before sunrise, coffee magically appearing like a benevolent spirit from the machine on my nightstand, and casually dropping 1,000 words before most people have located their souls for the day. No friction. No hesitation. Just flow. In that state, Pomodoro is an insult. It’s like getting a phone call in the bottom of the ninth inning of a perfect game. “Hey, you’re doing great—stop immediately and go walk around.” No. Absolutely not. The tomato can take its beep and go find someone else to micromanage. Flow doesn’t run on timers. Flow runs on momentum, music, and a complete disregard for linear time.
On the other hand, the other version of me is staring at that bathroom like Captain Kirk looking for new life on a strange new world, thinking, “I will absolutely do this… just not right now.” That’s where Pomodoro is a gift. “You don’t have to clean the whole thing, just start cleaning for 25 minutes, and it will be better than it is now.” Fine. That’s manageable and probably won’t kill me. I don’t have to care about it. I don’t have to enjoy it. I don’t even have to finish it. I just have to be in its proximity for 25 minutes and do something vaguely productive.
Strangely, that’s enough. Once I get past the start friction and executive dysfunction, I usually have trouble stopping. That’s what they call “intertial dysfunction.” Now my brain is thinking, “Aw, crap, now the front right quarter of the bathroom looks really nice. Might as well get just the left half done.” That turns into “Well, since I’m almost done anyway, might as well finish.” It’s the same mindset that would have me sitting at the brewery all day writing a novel, and had me unexpectedly “vibe coding” for twelve hours last Saturday. Why is that little fruit blackmailing me like this?!
Which makes my point. Is Pomodoro restrictive or liberating? The answer, inconveniently, is yes. It’s annoying when you don’t need or want structure. It’s the equivalent of a meeting, ironically titled “Quick sync,” that is neither. When you’re stuck, however, it’s weirdly perfect. It doesn’t care if you do good, just do something. So, it’s terrible for flow and perfect for friction. However, since I probably need to fix the “stopping problem” as much as the “starting problem,” I need to stay consistent in all aspects of life.
Because of that, I guess I’ll keep the little tomato around. It’s not going to be my defining religion or lifestyle any more than the “5 AM thing” was. It’s just the thing that keeps me from lying in bed all day and from not washing the shingles on the roof because I got on a cleaning kick. It will probably ruin my plans to become the best Grumpy Old Man in the old IT home, but at least the bathroom’s clean.
