I find timed sprints of activity useful, but shit like Pomodoro or whatever inherently does not work on me, because the petulant five-year-old in my head looks at the little numbers ticking down and goes, “You’re made up. I can ignore you and nothing will happen.”

You know what measure of time is not made up? “I’m gonna do as many of these dishes as I can in the time it takes my pot of water to boil.”

You know what you can’t ignore without consequences? “OK, I’ve got some downtime until the rice is done cooking, then it’s time to spring back into action.”

“I’ll clean as much of my room as I can in the space of this podcast episode.”

“I’m gonna put this album on in the background to make all this work stuff less tedious to slog through, and brute-force attack it until the music stops.”

No, it doesn’t always work, because the petulant five-year-old in my head is incredibly stubborn. But finding a non-arbitrary measure of time does, in fact, increase the likelihood that I can make my dumb brain play ball.