Infinity Coder

The Pomodoro Technique: A Research-Backed Productivity Booster

Brijesh Chandrakar — Sun, 16 Mar 2025 06:33:35 GMT

Time management is a critical factor in personal and professional productivity. The Pomodoro Technique, developed by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s, has gained widespread recognition as an effective strategy for enhancing focus, efficiency, and time awareness. With the integration of a Pomodoro Timer into Time Overflow, users can now experience these benefits along with the Time logging features to have a more comprehensive holistic approach to productivity.

How the Pomodoro Technique Works

The Pomodoro Technique is simple yet powerful. It involves breaking work into focused intervals, typically 25 minutes long, known as "Pomodoros," followed by a short break of 5 minutes. After four Pomodoros, a more extended break of 15–30 minutes is taken. This structure capitalizes on the brain’s ability to maintain attention and minimizes cognitive fatigue.

The Science Behind Pomodoro and Productivity

Several studies have demonstrated the benefits of time-blocking methods like the Pomodoro Technique. Research in cognitive psychology suggests that focused work sessions followed by regular breaks improve retention, reduce mental exhaustion, and enhance task efficiency. Key findings include:

Increased Focus and Reduced Distractions: The structured time intervals help workers resist distractions by creating a sense of urgency. Studies show that time constraints can improve cognitive performance and reduce procrastination.
Enhanced Task Completion Rates: By breaking work into defined segments, individuals are more likely to complete tasks efficiently rather than postponing or abandoning them midway.
Reduced Mental Fatigue: Short breaks help prevent cognitive overload, a common issue when working on complex or lengthy tasks without rest.
Improved Motivation: The feeling of accomplishment after each Pomodoro cycle can reinforce positive work habits and sustain motivation.

Real-World Applications of the Pomodoro Technique

The Pomodoro Technique is widely used across industries and professions. Here’s how different professionals can benefit:

Software Developers: Coding requires deep focus, and Pomodoro sessions help developers maintain concentration while reducing the risk of burnout.
Writers and Content Creators: Writers can tackle writer’s block by setting clear, timed writing goals, making it easier to produce content efficiently.
Students and Academics: The method is particularly useful for students who need to study effectively without feeling overwhelmed by long study sessions.
Entrepreneurs and Freelancers: Managing multiple projects becomes more structured when work is segmented into measurable intervals.
Corporate Employees: The technique can be used for administrative tasks, emails, and meetings to improve overall workplace efficiency.

Time Overflow - With Pomodoro: Enhancing Productivity with an Integrated Pomodoro Timer

Time Overflow now has an integrated Pomodoro-inspired timer. The idea is to allow users to have a focused productive session (by default of 25 minutes) and simultaneously log the session automatically for analysis. However, unlike the traditional Pomodoro timer, Time Overflow offers more flexibility where users can have a session from 2 minutes to 90 minutes. Usually, 25 minutes works best for most users. The timer can run in the background also (if the app is not killed). However, that will defeat the purpose as the whole point of a Pomodoro session is to focus on your task. So, keep the timer running in the foreground and focus on your work. You’ll receive a notification once your session is over.
Time logged using the Pomodoro Timer will also boost your productive score. The app gives 1.5 weightage to Pomodoro Timer logged time over regular time logging for calculating productivity score.
There is one issue with notifications when the phone gets locked while the timer is running. This is a known issue that I will try to resolve with the next update.

Conclusion

The Pomodoro Technique is a proven method for improving productivity by leveraging focused work intervals and strategic breaks. Whether you’re a professional, student, or entrepreneur, integrating this technique into your daily routine can help you work smarter, not harder. With Time Overflow - With Pomodoro, users can seamlessly incorporate this powerful productivity strategy into their workflow, maximizing efficiency, taming procrastinating habits and minimizing burnout.

Time Overflow: The idea of using Time logging to boost productivity

Brijesh Chandrakar — Sat, 08 Feb 2025 06:48:33 GMT

“Time is money.” We have heard this from childhood. But I disagree. Time is much more than money. How a person spends his time on an average day is a good indicator of his personality. The value of time is understood only when it’s gone.
Gone are the days when our lives were simpler. We had limited things to waste our time when we were bored. Even the “wasteful” activities of the past like playing outside all day were not so wasteful as they taught us valuable life skills, and developed our physical abilities. But now, a major part of the world is hooked onto the internet, and technology. Our social circle and communities are shrinking. Yet our social media life, time on the internet, and screens are ballooning to unsustainable levels. We spend so much time on things we don’t need, things we don’t need to learn, know, hear or see. We don’t even have control over what we see. Things are shown to us based on our “preferences or likes, dislikes”. At least that’s what we end up believing. But in the end, when we take a deep breath and introspect, we realise how wasteful we were with our “time”. This realisation is rare. It doesn’t last long. We usually end up falling into the same routine of a wasteful dopamine-chasing lifestyle. To get out of this routine is hard. But I have managed to get out of this in the past. However, a few months ago I felt like I was falling into the same trap again.
So, to get out of this trap, I needed to follow the same technique I had used the first time. But then I realised, I could develop a mobile app to help me execute my plan. And that’s when I thought of building Time Overflow. The first user of this app is myself. Building it and publishing it to the Google Play store is part of my learning.
So what’s the idea behind Time overflow?
The idea is simple. I used to log time whenever I do any work. Suppose my plan is to study for next hour, I will sit to study. But I will look at the time before studying. And then at the end of the session, I used to log time honestly. Honest time logging is key. Suppose I opened my mobile and opened instagram for 5 minutes, I will deduct atleast 6-7 minutes from the time I logged. This, I used to do for day after day. What I realised from that experience was, it was very hard to achieve 300 minutes of consistent productive minutes day after day. We overrate how productive we are and we underestimate how wasteful we are. That’s just the nature of human consciousness. That realisation was a reality check for me. But what I achieved with daily time logging was exceptional. I managed to get out of youtube procrastination, social media procrastination. I even deactivated my facebook, instagram. I started reading books in free time. I never compromised on essential part of my life like spending time with family, daily workouts, cooking food for myself, etc. With this practice, I became a much better version of myself. I had white boards in my room to log time.
Times have changed since then. Time overflow is an attempt to bring that idea and practice to a mobile application but with some extra features, analytics.

The app is simple.

There are three tabs. Tracker, Analytics, Tutorial.

Analog clock is there to make you aware of time while logging. In this digital age, I still feel nothing beats analog clock. They are much better than these new age smart watches. Anyways, when user clicks on Log Your Time, he/she is taken to Time Logging View. Here, the user can quickly enter the name of the activity. And enter time in hours and minutes, or total minutes also. Like 90 minutes workout. And then categorise the activity as either productive, wasteful or neutral. There is slide to log option.

Once you start logging activities for the day, you’ll see a list of activities alog with a horizontal bar depicting a visual representation of how things are going today. You can also long press to multi-select and then delete the activities you want.

Users can customize key preference settings, with the most crucial being the ability to set daily targets. These targets help determine if your day was productive, wasteful, or neutral. It's advisable to begin with easy, lenient daily targets. Once you consistently meet these targets, you can gradually aim for more challenging ones. Note that new targets take effect the following day, as they are designed to evolve over time. Daily productivity is assessed based on the targets set for that specific day, rather than the current target. Users can take backup of their data by exporting them via email. Users can also enable reminder notifications which are sent at convient time set by users. By default, these notifications aren’t enabled.

Once you start logging your time, you can view analytics by switching to the analytics tab. This is where users often face the reality of their time usage. The analytics tab contains several widgets, each designed to show time usage in different ways. The first widget is a simple graph displaying daily time spent (on the y-axis) versus days (on the x-axis). The second widget shows weekly progress. It's not uncommon for people to start losing energy as they approach Thursday and Friday.

The next widget is likely the most feature-rich: the activity calendar. Each day is marked as productive, neutral, or wasteful based on the targets set for that day. Users can also designate days as holidays. These color codes provide a quick overview of past performance. Additionally, each day contains a record and history of activities, functioning as a mini time diary. While it's not intended to replace a traditional diary, it's a handy way to keep track of what you were doing on different days of the calendar.

Last but not the least, there is all time data and a productive badge based on overall performance of users.

I have planned more widgets for future releases. You can also share suggestions to improve these widgets or propose a completely new widget of your own. I will try to include these suggestions in future updates.

Users in closed testing have reported a decrease in their wasteful time usage after regularly using this app. The most significant reduction occurs in the use of social media apps. One user mentioned switching to listening to helpful podcasts instead of watching short videos once he realized how much time he was wasting on them. During the closed testing, I was also in Hyderabad for more than a week. The drop in productivity while in a metro city was quite significant. I wasn't able to register even a single productive day! Needless to say, working from home is far superior to working from the office. Just commuting to work was costing me more than 2.5 hours a day!
Time Overflow's purpose is to make users aware of these small things they might already know but tend to forget quickly. Once users create these records and start visualizing them, they become much more equipped and motivated to make informed decisions and cut out wasteful time usage. Time matters! Don’t let it slip away. Don’t let it overflow. It’s too precious too little.

Don’t forget to download and start using this app today!

Why I chose the React Native expo for my new mobile app

Brijesh Chandrakar — Mon, 30 Dec 2024 16:25:29 GMT

The choice of technology when building a mobile app is critical. It affects performance, maintainability, ease of coding, and long-term support. After careful consideration of these factors, I chose React Native Expo. This blog explains the options I explored, their pros and cons, and why React Native Expo emerged as the ideal choice for my needs.

The Landscape of Mobile Development Technologies

Mobile development technologies generally fall into three categories:

Native Development
Cross-Platform Frameworks
Progressive Web Apps (PWAs)

1. Native Development

Native development involves creating separate apps for iOS and Android using platform-specific languages like Swift (iOS) and Kotlin/Java (Android).

Pros:

Performance: Native apps offer the best performance and smoothest user experience.
Platform Features provide direct access to device APIs and native UI components.
Long-term Viability: Supported by Apple and Google, they are future-proof.

Cons:

Cost: Developing and maintaining two separate codebases is resource-intensive. Plus, anyone without a Macbook cannot develop native iOS apps.
Time-Consuming: Synchronizing feature updates across platforms is challenging.
Steep Learning Curve: Requires expertise in multiple programming languages.

Best For: Apps requiring high performance or platform-specific features (e.g., gaming, AR apps).

2. Cross-Platform Frameworks

These frameworks allow developers to write a single codebase that works on both iOS and Android. Key players include:

a) React Native

React Native uses JavaScript and React to build cross-platform apps.

Pros:

Efficiency: One codebase for two platforms saves time and resources.
Strong Community Support: Extensive libraries, tools, and resources.
Near-Native Performance: Offers performance close to native apps.
Easy for web developers: Knowledge of javascript, typescript, and React is a big plus.

Cons:

Debugging Challenges: Errors can arise from dependency conflicts.
Customization Limits: Complex animations or native features may need native modules.

b) Flutter

Flutter, powered by Google, uses Dart and its own rendering engine.

Pros:

Customizable UI: High flexibility with widgets for seamless UI across platforms.
Performance: Faster rendering due to its custom engine. Many comparisons have put it above React Native in performance although they might be soon losing this advantage over React Native expo.
Growing Ecosystem: Backed by Google, it is evolving rapidly.

Cons:

Steeper Learning Curve: Dart is less popular and has limited community support.
App Size: Flutter apps are often larger due to the bundled engine.
Lack of Google support: Even now, there are rumours that Google is not investing much in the technology.

3. Progressive Web Apps (PWAs)

PWAs are essentially websites that function like apps, accessible via a browser.

Pros:

Ease of Development: Built with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
Cost-Effective: A single codebase runs on all platforms.
No Installation Required: Users can access PWAs directly.

Cons:

Limited Performance: Unsuitable for resource-intensive applications.
Restricted Device Access: Limited integration with hardware features like GPS, camera, and sensors.
Browser Dependency: User experience varies across browsers.

Best For: Content-based apps with minimal hardware interaction.

Why React Native Expo?

After evaluating these options, there were only two options I was considering: Flutter and React Native. Both of them are hybrid app development technologies. Even though I have experience with React Native, initially I was leaning towards Flutter. I was excited to learn about Flutter because of the rave reviews of their developers. Plus the performance edge Flutter has (or had) over React Native apps was making me want to try it even more. But in the end, I chose React Native Expo. Here's why:

1. Performance vs. Development Time

React Native provides near-native performance without the overhead of native development. It strikes a balance between speed and resource efficiency, making it ideal for my app, which doesn’t require cutting-edge hardware interactions.

2. Simplicity with Expo

Expo simplifies React Native development by bundling tools for:

Building: Unified commands for production-ready builds.
Testing: Instant previews on devices.
Deployment: Easy app distribution for both iOS and Android.

This reduced the complexity of setting up and managing native dependencies.

3. Community and Libraries

React Native's massive community ensures rich resources, tutorials, and third-party libraries. With the Expo, I gained access to an even more curated ecosystem, further simplifying my work.

4. Maintainability

One codebase for two platforms ensures that future updates and bug fixes are streamlined. React Native’s architecture supports modular code, improving maintainability.

5. Support and Longevity

React Native is backed by Meta, ensuring consistent updates and support. Expo, actively maintained, complements this with seamless integration and rapid tooling updates.

Why Not Other Technologies?

Native Development: Too resource-intensive for my goals.
Flutter: While appealing, Dart’s smaller community and my familiarity with JavaScript made React Native the better choice. Plus recent developments and news about Google cutting down Flutter investments meant I am not that confident about the future of this technology. I want Flutter to succeed, grow and become a serious contender to React Native.
PWAs: Lacked the native feel and access to device features required for my app.

Challenges with React Native Expo

While I ultimately chose React Native Expo, it isn’t without challenges:

Performance for Complex Apps: Native development may outperform React Native in apps requiring high computational efficiency.
Dependence on Expo Ecosystem: Some advanced features might require ejecting from Expo, complicating the setup.
Library Compatibility: Occasionally, libraries don’t align perfectly with Expo’s managed workflow.
Unit testing: I am personally not a fan of javascript, jest-based unit testing. Sometimes, it takes more time to write unit tests than actual feature development

Despite these, the benefits outweighed the drawbacks for my use case.

Conclusion

Choosing the right mobile development technology involves weighing performance, development time, maintainability, and community support. After exploring native development, cross-platform frameworks, and PWAs, I opted for React Native Expo. It offers a perfect blend of efficiency, simplicity, and community support, enabling me to create production-ready apps for both iOS and Android with ease.

For developers balancing similar needs, React Native Expo could be the right choice—combining power, flexibility, and a smoother development experience.

ASP.NET Core Resources collection

Brijesh Chandrakar — Sun, 23 Jun 2024 15:50:27 GMT

The purpose of this post is to document all the relevant resources such as books, podcasts, YouTube videos, courses, and projects related to ASP.NET core in a single place. I will keep updating this post from time to time.

ASP.NET documentation: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/?view=aspnetcore-8.0
The Modern .Net show: https://dotnetcore.show/episodes/
Architecture guides: https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/dotnet/architecture-guides
Starting with .NET: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohkeYczD1LY
Pro C# with .NET 6: https://dl.ebooksworld.ir/books/Pro.CSharp.10.with.NET.6.Andrew.Troelsen.Phil.Japikse.Apress.9781484278680.EBooksWorld.ir.pdf
Clean code by Robert C. Martin: Summary of the book: https://gist.github.com/wojteklu/73c6914cc446146b8b533c0988cf8d29
Dependency injection in .NET by Mark Seemann

Highly recommend cloning this repo for good books for developers: https://github.com/martinmurciego/good-books