marinara VS stopwatch

If you are always working in browser there is this chrome addon: https://github.com/schmich/marinara

I use the Chrome extension https://github.com/schmich/marinara and have been since November 22.

It hadn't worked for me previously because I thought it would be too much conscious effort, and I wanted a solution that would trick me into focusing.

However, I realized that many people, myself included, probably don't even get ~2hrs of focused work in a day (2hrs is a ballpark figure, no data to prove it).

Since then, I set timers of 25 minutes in which I'd just focus on what I'm supposed to do, and even though the first 15 minutes I drift off, thinking about something else, after a certain point the work that's in front of me is all I'm thinking about and I'm focusing effortlessly.

There are instances where I'm not focused, and I keep looking at the timer and waiting for it to get to 0. This is also great, since I still consider it somewhat productive that I stuck to just trying to do the work, instead of watching stuff on YT or browsing HN. This builds a little bit of self confidence.

The way I try to think is "I don't care what happens, unless it's a major emergency, I'm not letting anything distract me until this timer reaches 0".

I notice that the fact that I know a break is coming is very important tome. If break time wasn't involved, then I'd dread the whole experience because it wouldn't have any finality.

This last thing I knew already, but I have to reinforce it every so often: take breaks. I use a Pomodoro timer to make myself remember to take breaks, but I am very guilty of putting that off for just “one more thing.” I thought that I would be working at my desk writing code from 9-5. That is not how quality code is written. Everyone knows that taking breaks is a good thing, that it lets you clear your head and come at a problem from a different perspective, but it’s hard to do in practice. It’s something that I think a lot of developers struggle with, but using the reset of a break really does help me get more things done.

Don't know if it is a widget directly but here is a nice and easy to use stopwatch: https://github.com/haggen/stopwatch