May 18, 2025
Why 5 minute breaks made me more productive than 2 hour focus sessions
I once spent two hours setting up conversion tracking on an ad platform before realising it wasn't even the right platform for our needs. This painful waste of time finally convinced me to try the Pomodoro technique—something I'd resisted for years.
The technique I fought against for years
When colleagues invited me to Pomodoro sessions, I'd politely decline. The idea seemed ridiculous:
- Define a goal or intention
- Set a timer for focused work (usually 25-45 minutes)
- Take a short break (5-10 minutes)
- Repeat
I prided myself on marathon focus sessions. Breaks were for the weak! But after repeatedly catching myself deep in unproductive rabbit holes, I reluctantly gave the technique a try.
Breaks force me to question my approach before wasting hours
During an AI risk communication project, I was crafting an elaborate methodology to identify convincing arguments. A forced 5-minute break made me step back and question my approach.
Instead of spending days on a survey I'd analyse myself, I pivoted to running quick experiments that would help brief a research agency—a far more efficient use of our expertise.
Without that structured pause, I would have wasted days on the wrong approach.
Breaks prevent me from going down costly rabbit holes
I caught myself spending hours perfecting conversion tracking on an ad platform before even validating the platform itself. Now, my timer goes off and I immediately ask: "Am I still working on the right problem?"
These five-minute reality checks have saved me countless hours of misplaced effort on tasks that seemed important in the moment but weren't.
Breaks prompt me to invest in future productivity
When building features for BlueDot’s custom learning platform, my breaks now trigger crucial questions:
- "Could I create a reusable component instead of this one-off solution?"
- "Should I document this process for my future self?"
- "Is there a process here I could automate?"
These small improvements, consistently applied after breaks, have dramatically reduced the time I spend on repeated tasks—questions I never stopped to ask during non-stop work sessions.
The counterintuitive truth about productivity
The power isn't in the work periods—it's in the breaks.
These structured pauses created space for me to evaluate my approach before investing too much in the wrong direction. This counterintuitive approach has saved me at least 5 hours every week.
Try a simple version today: set a 25-minute timer for your current project, then force yourself to take a 5-minute break to ask: "Am I approaching this the right way?"
You might discover, as I did, that what feels like an interruption is actually your most powerful productivity tool.