This was my immediate reaction as well. The entire article feels like it is attempting to solve a problem using the exact same kind of thinking that created the problem in the first place.

I think meditation is great, but I am more inclined toward the Western religious traditions that state “faith without works is dead”. Getting outside of yourself by helping others is a much more concrete and visceral experience, with similar results on your mental landscape.

It is a pretty tough task to measure how productive you are (for the sake of better expectations). Assuming you do succeed at measuring your maximum productivity. The you have to measure is your distribution of productivity over time. This again is quite a tough task. A short cut is to just not beat yourself up over your productivity on a given day. Granted, that maybe easier said than done, but maybe that is what the OP should strive for. Or, maybe he is on the path to doing that.

Indeed. The author describes the problem very well but their solution doesn’t seem right.

It's good to have data. "I'm unproductive" vs "I choose to spend my time doing X". It's a lot easier to be more productive by "watching 15 minutes less of tv" when you know you watching 3 hours a night.

Pomodoro isn't a productivity system. It's "I'm going to focus for ~15 minutes", and that's much easier to do than "spend 8 hours working".

Having more data isn't always better. For example, there are certain medical diagnosis protocols that basically involve going down a predetermined list of rote checks precisely because studies show that getting extra information ends up leading the doctor to make poorer diagnoses.

Looking at the article, one example of data collection is "I know that I write at about 20-30 WPM" (the implication being that the author feels pressured to write at a minimum level of "efficiency"). Coupled w/ pomodoro, it essentially becomes a pressure to write X words in Y minutes, lest feelings of inadequacy hit later upon reflection. This to me feels borderline unhealthy: "what if I forgot to measure", "what if I under-deliver", etc are all possible psychological sinkholes.

What meditation promotes is asking yourself what exactly happiness means to you personally, and observing how expectations and accomplishments play a role towards your objectives. Sometimes yes you just need to recognize that you need to get off your ass and do the work, but sometimes it's a matter of prioritization, sometimes less is more.

I found when I tried doing this "calibration" phase, that it's not just about sheer time spent on a task.

A task that took three 1-hour sessions is often not doable in one 3-hour session, because you lose creative productivity after a bit of time. That was my first mistake when trying to estimate how long things would take.

Instead, now I calibrate based on time as well as sessions, so I know preparing a new 80-minute lecture (for a class) takes two 5-hour sessions: the first 5-hour session to outline the class and activities, gather the major sources and bullet points I want to make; then the second 5-hour session to put together the polished version of slides and activity script, and do a 60-minute mental run-through.

Same with a lot of other tasks. Some are short but need multiple sessions, like writing recommendation letters that will be closely read. Even though it's easy to write the 2 pages in about 30 minutes, it rarely gets the right tone, and needs at least one or two more 20-minute sessions to capture the applicant's character as clearly as possible.