Ever been so busy you can’t get anything done? What do I do during those times? Spend time optimizing my productivity routine of course. June 2020 was super busy period for me and I found that my PowerShell Pomodoro timer needed some tuning to be easier to use. Download the updated script from GitHub. I have done the following changes

• Hide Badges on taskbar buttons
• Create a shortcut to start it in a fast and simple way
• Fixed so that presentationsettings.exe works in 64bit PowerShell
• Read my original post about this script
• Pomodoro is a technique to induce flow in a busy workday through single tasking. Read more at the end of this blogpost

Hide badges on taskbar buttons

Instead of stopping Microsoft Teams, I hide the badges on taskbar buttons such as Outlook, Teams and Microsoft To Do. You must have access to changing the registry for this to work which was the best approach I could find.

#Hide badge or stop Teams
if ($Teamsmode -notmatch "HideBadge"){
    #Stop Microsoft Teams
    Write-Host "Closing Microsoft Teams" -ForegroundColor Green
    Get-Process -Name Teams -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Stop-Process -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
}
else{
    #Hiding badges on taskbar buttons such as Outlook, Teams and ToDo
    Write-Host "Hiding badges on taskbar buttons" -ForegroundColor Green
    Set-Itemproperty -path 'HKCU:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced' -Name 'TaskbarBadges' -value '0'
    Stop-Process -ProcessName explorer
}

During hide badge you will not see status in the taskbar icons, which helps you keep focus during the Pomodoro sprint.

When the Pomodoro sprint is finished, it will show badges again

Showing badge on taskbar app is new in Microsoft To Do and can be turned on or off under settings, I prefer to turn it off

Create a shortcut to start it in a fast and simple way

In order to start the script in an fast and simple way, you can create a shortcut to the script.

1. On you desktop, right click and select new shortcut
2. In the shortcut target box, type the following:
   • powershell.exe -noexit -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File
3. File is the path where you stored the Start-SimplePomodoro.ps1
   • “C:\Users\UserName\OneDrive – CloudWay\Dokumenter\GitHub\MyScripts\Start-SimplePomodoro\Start-MySimplePomodoro.ps1”
4. I have crated an Icon you can use for the shortcut which you can find on GitHub
5. If you pin it to you taskbar, you can easily start your Pomodoro sprint

Fixed so that presentationsettings.exe works in 64bit PowerShell

I use presentationsettings.exe to put the computer in presentation mode which supresses popups from all you applications and Windows 10. This is an 32bit application. I found that 64bit PowerShell could not find this due to the feature, File System Redirector. I found a workaround and incorporated it in the script so that it works wherever you are running it

Write-Host "Starting presentation mode" -ForegroundColor Green
if (Test-Path "C:\Windows\sysnative\PresentationSettings.exe"){Start-Process "C:\Windows\sysnative\PresentationSettings.exe" /start -NoNewWindow}
else {presentationsettings /start}

By pointing 64bit PowerShell to the path C:\Windows\sysnative\ I was able to run 32bit apps like PresentationSettings.

The result

Download the script from GitHub

The goal is to induce the flow state in a busy workday

Multitasking is a myth. The goal is to reach the flow state by focusing on one task at a time. Have you ever started writing an email, thought you sent it and eagerly waiting for a response, only to find it incomplete and unsent at the end of the day? This is one of the perils of multitasking.

The Pomodoro Technique is a great methodology to induce flow in a busy workday. It is all about avoiding distractions for 15-25 minutes and focus on one task at a time. This is a short enough period in the day that you can squeeze it in before a meeting. It is incredible what you can get done 15-25 minutes. The goal is to not get distracted and it takes about 7 minutes of focus before you reach your flow state.

If you want to succeed with Pomodoro, you need to make yourself unavailable. Equally important, you need to make yourself available again when those 25 minutes have passed. That is why we created the Pomodoro PowerShell tool, and why I love the simplicity of this approach.

Watch an outtake from my session at Microsoft Ignite 2017 on single-tasking

Learn more on my thinking around single-tasking and tools available to succeed with the flow state, from this outtake of my OneNote LifeHacks talk at Microsoft Ignite 2017

Happy deep work!