You can use a 25-minute block of time to limit the amount of time you spend on something that’s unpleasant or potentially unproductive. Tasks like this could include:
Over-perfecting something The images I create for this blog are a good example. I co-create them with ChatGPT and then spend a few minutes colorizing them in Photoshop. They’re fun, but no one’s going to look at them for more than 10 seconds. Perfect is the enemy of good — it’s also the enemy of getting anything done.
Answering unimportant email can be a real time-sink. Set a fixed amount of time to accomplish this task and you’ll get some of your day back.
The website tomato-timer.com is easy to use and uncluttered — as of this writing (and remixed in 2025), it has no popup (or any other!) ads.
