Lazydoro Mothers You Into Being Productive

January 29, 2020 by Kristina Panos 3 Comments

The Pomodoro Technique has helped countless people ramp up their productivity since it was devised in the late 1980s. Breaking down tasks into 25 minute chunks can improve your focus tremendously, provided you show up, start the timer, and get to work.

Lazydoro takes the psychology focus even further. In [romilly.cocking]’s interpretation, a time-of-flight (ToF) sensor is your productivity Santa Claus — it knows whether you’re doing your part by simply applying butt to chair, and your present is a productive 25 minutes where not a second is wasted futzing with timers and worrying about time lost to such administrative tasks. When Lazydoro senses that you have arrived, the Raspi Zero starts a 25-minute Pomodoro timer, and represents the time remaining across a Pimoroni BLINKT LED matrix.

But hold on, you haven’t heard the best part yet. Lazydoro was designed with real life in mind, because [romilly] thought of everything. Whenever you leave your chair, a 5-minute timer starts, and there’s a beep when time is up. If you make it through the 25 minutes and hear the victory beep, then it’s break time. But if you get up too soon, the work timer stops, and the 5-minute timer becomes your limited space in which to fret, stare out the window, or get the snack you think you desperately need to keep going. This makes Lazydoro awesome even without the Pomodoro part, because simply sitting back down is a big step one.

If you make a circuit sculpture Pomodoro and stare at it on your 5-minute breaks, you might achieve productivity enlightenment.

Hackaday Prize Semifinalist: A Device For Autism And Pomodoros

September 10, 2015 by Brian Benchoff 11 Comments

[jens.andree] found that many people on the autism spectrum have problems perceiving time. This makes the simplest tasks at home or at school harder. To help solve this problem, he’s created the Timstock Slim for this year’s Hackaday Prize. It’s a timer with four buttons to count down 5, 10, 15, or 20 minutes, with a neat LED bar graph showing the remaining time.

The Timstock Slim is an extremely simple device – it’s just an ATTiny84, a few shift registers, some LEDs, resistors, buttons, and a coin cell battery clip. It also does exactly what it says on the tin; it counts out a few minutes at a time, while providing visual feedback in the form of a bunch of LEDs.

Interestingly, this device may be useful to more than just those with autism; the pomodoro technique of time management uses a similar device – a kitchen timer – to keep its adherents on track. With no modifications at all, [jens’] Timstock could be used for a slightly modified pomodoro technique, geared towards 5, 10, 15, or 20 minute increments.

The 2015 Hackaday Prize is sponsored by:

Hack All The Things In The Time You Save With This LED Pomodoro Timer

February 9, 2014 by Kristina Panos 36 Comments

Do you want to use your time more productively but are tomato-averse? [Robin]’s LED Pomodoro timer could be the perfect hack for you.

The Pomodoro Technique is a time management solution developed in the late 1980s. The basic idea is to spend a very focused 25 minutes performing some activity such as working or studying and then take a 5-minute break. Many of its proponents use a tomato-shaped kitchen timer to alert them to switch between the two states, but [Robin] wanted to make his own and learn along the way.

First, he wanted to use an ATtiny85 and learn about its features. Specifically, he used its timers, PWM, and low-power sleep mode. [Robin] used Charlieplexing to drive a total of six LEDs. When the timer starts, five yellow LEDs are driven high to indicate each 5-minute slice of work time. A red LED is lit during the 5-minute break.

[Robin] also explored compact PCB design and fabrication. All components are SMD and his board is 4cm square. [Robin] is using this SMD buzzer for discrete feedback. He included a footprint for a six-pin ISP header and programmed it with pogo pins. The timer is completely interrupt-driven: one click of the tactile button starts the work counter, and the buzzer sounds when time is up. A second click starts the break counter.

[Robin] has made everything available in his GitHub repo and encourages you to use it. Time’s a-wastin’!