red in the face

I just want to give a productivity shout-out to the Pomodoro Time Management App, an adorable little tomato that hangs out in my menu bar counting down twenty-five minute intervals while I work.

Apparently what my dissertation writing needed was for me to treat myself like a toddler who doesn't want to pick up her toys but will easily and readily be tricked into thinking it is a game - nay, a COMPETITION! - to breathlessly fling barbies back into a box before the timer goes ding. I will readily admit to typing faster and faster as I see my tomato timer count down the final three minutes, very afraid that if that 'ding' comes before I finish typing my inspired thoughts on imperial involvement in the Roman senate, my computer will explode, taking every good idea I might have with it.

The fancy (free) app has replaced my iPhone timer, which I had been using to mark off 20-30 minute timed writing sessions (and which was become disorienting because it made the same chime as my morning alarm. Finishing a paragraph was akin to hitting snooze and my body done get confused). What's nice about Pomodoro is that it gives you a five-minute break after each session, so now I read Slate with the same nervous drive for completion. While I used to casually wonder 'when is Dahlia Lithwick going to get the point?' I'm now frantically scrolling while looking at the clock thinking, 'oh, shit, I sure hope Lithwick gets to the point because I've got a minute thirty for this supreme court article to get INTERESTING'. The internet is starting to feel like a trailer to an action movie. 'In a world where Facebook only has five minutes to load albums of people you only tangentially know and vegan cooking blogs are limited to only nine different recipes for seitan and quinoa (pronounced keen-wah!) before the reader must go back to doing work, will the internet survive?'

Dun dun dun.