Guides and notes from POMODIARY
We write about the problems our products try to solve: staying focused, building habits, learning languages, reading papers, keeping your books, making bead art and reading the Chinese classics. Every guide is written to be useful on its own, whether or not you use our apps.
Classics
A Beginner's Guide to Reading the Tao Te Ching
What the Tao Te Ching is, how its 81 chapters are organized, what the excavated manuscripts changed, and a practical way to start reading it well.
· 7 min read
How to Read an I Ching Hexagram: Trigrams, Lines, and Changing Lines
A clear, step-by-step guide to the structure of an I Ching hexagram: the eight trigrams, yin and yang lines, changing lines, and the coin method.
· 7 min read
Wu Wei Explained: What "Non-Action" Really Means in the Tao Te Ching
Wu wei is not "doing nothing". We read the key lines of the Tao Te Ching in Chinese, translate them closely, and show what the idea means in practice.
· 6 min read
Personal Finance
A Simple Personal Bookkeeping System You Will Actually Keep
A starter system for personal bookkeeping: accounts vs categories, a ready-made category list, a weekly 15-minute review, reconciling and a monthly report.
· 6 min read
AI Agent Bookkeeping: Tracking Money in Plain Language
What agent-based bookkeeping is, how an AI assistant connects to a ledger, example plain-language entries, and safety habits that keep records accurate.
· 6 min read
Games & Culture
Five Traditional Folk Board Games: Rules, Strategy and a Little History
How to play Tiger and Goats, Cannons and Soldiers, Watermelon Chess, Jungle and Gomoku, with beginner strategy tips and brief notes on their history.
· 7 min read
Where Chinese Emperors Came From: The Geography of Dynasty Founders and Capitals
Where China’s dynasty founders were born, where they set their capitals, and why the center of power moved from Chang’an to Kaifeng, Nanjing, and Beijing.
· 6 min read
Productivity
How to Build Habits with Pomodoro Sessions and Daily Check-Ins
A practical system for turning focus sessions into lasting habits: designing goals, tracking time per goal, using streaks wisely and reviewing each week.
· 6 min read
How to Keep a Dream Journal That You Actually Use
A practical method for keeping a dream journal: bedside setup, what to write first, tagging symbols and emotions, and a simple weekly review.
· 6 min read
Pomodoro Interval Variations: 25/5, 50/10, 52/17 and 90-Minute Blocks
Compare popular focus intervals, from classic 25/5 to 90-minute blocks, learn which suits each type of task, and borrow our example daily schedules.
· 6 min read
The Pomodoro Technique: A Complete, Practical Guide
How the Pomodoro Technique really works: its origins, the 25/5 cycle, long breaks, handling interruptions, estimating tasks and the mistakes to avoid.
· 6 min read
Tools & Utilities
How to Design Shareable Quote Cards: Typography, Layout and Sizes
Practical rules for quote cards: line length, hierarchy, contrast and accessibility, common social image sizes, and attributing quotes without legal trouble.
· 7 min read
How to Plan a Weekend Road Trip by Drive Time, Not Distance
Plan weekend getaways using drive-time rings instead of kilometres: choosing 2, 3 or 4-hour radiuses, managing fatigue, packing and budgeting the trip.
· 6 min read
How to Set a Custom Tesla Lock Sound and Boombox Sounds (and Stay Legal)
USB formatting, the LockChime.wav file, the Boombox folder, which cars support it, park-only rules and how to choose sounds you actually have the rights to use.
· 7 min read
Multitasking on Android: Split Screen, Picture-in-Picture and Floating Windows
A practical guide to Android multitasking: when to use split screen, picture-in-picture or floating windows, plus overlay permissions, battery and privacy tips.
· 6 min read
Research & AI
How to Read a Research Paper: The Three-Pass Method, Explained
A practical guide to reading research papers with the three-pass method: what to check in the abstract, figures and methods, plus a reusable note template.
· 7 min read
Using AI to Summarize Research Papers Responsibly
Use AI paper summaries without being misled: spot hallucinations, verify claims in the PDF, cite correctly, protect manuscripts and stay honest.
· 6 min read
Crafts
How to Turn a Photo into a Fuse Bead Pattern That Actually Works
Choosing an image, picking a grid size, reducing the palette, deciding on dithering and cleaning up by hand: a step-by-step method for photo bead patterns.
· 6 min read
Perler Bead Basics: A Practical Beginner's Guide to Fuse Beads
Bead sizes, pegboards, ironing with parchment paper, safety for kids, fixing mistakes and storage: everything you need for your first fuse bead project.
· 7 min read
Perler vs Hama vs Artkal vs MARD: How the Fuse Bead Brands Compare
Where each fuse bead brand comes from, which sizes it makes, how broad its palette is and whether beads and pegboards mix: a practical comparison for buyers.
· 6 min read
Language Learning
How to Type Japanese: A Practical IME Guide for Windows, Mac, iOS and Android
Set up a Japanese input method on any device, learn the romaji rules for っ, ん and small kana, convert to kanji quickly, and avoid common typing gotchas.
· 6 min read
Japanese Dictation Practice: A Step-by-Step Listening Routine
A practical Japanese dictation (書き取り) routine: choosing audio, chunking sentences, shadowing versus dictation, analysing errors and tracking real progress.
· 6 min read
Learn Japanese by Typing: Why Active Production Beats Passive Review
How typing Japanese (romaji to kana to kanji) strengthens reading, spelling and recall, plus a practical routine using typing, fill-in and dictation drills.
· 7 min read
Reading Real Japanese on X: Casual Grammar, Slang and Net Speak
Use Japanese posts on X as reading practice: decode casual contractions like てる, ちゃう and じゃん, slang, and net speak like w and 草, and build useful notes.
· 6 min read
は vs が: A Practical Guide to Japanese Topic and Subject Particles
An example-driven guide to the Japanese particles は and が: topic versus subject, new versus known information, contrast, and common learner errors.
· 6 min read
Learning Japanese in Flow State: Why I Built FlowType.AI
Why I built FlowType.AI: Japanese typing practice, kana drills, fill-in and dictation that turn studying Japanese into a smooth, rhythmic flow experience.
· 3 min read
Behind the Scenes
I Turned Watching Ants Haul Insects as a Kid into 20 New Game Levels
Crumb Colony chapter six adds 20 insect levels where the key box hides deep in the tray. How I used bots to build levels you cannot solve by logic alone.
· 6 min read
A 100K-Download App Sat Quiet for Two Years. After a 13-Day Revamp, It Started Earning Again
Pomodoro Diary had 100K+ downloads but no real update in a year or two. We merged 53 PRs in 13 days to rebuild it, and paid orders started coming back in.
· 6 min read
I Made a Little Game About Ants Carrying Pixel Art Home, One Bite at a Time
Crumb Colony is a free browser puzzle game: release colored ants and watch them carry a pixel-art dish to their nest, bite by bite, across 20 solvable levels.
· 5 min read
I Asked AI to Stop a Dev Server. It Killed My Entire Browser, Twice
One pkill line on macOS took down Chrome, Claude and ChatGPT at once, twice in a week. The cause was argument order; a pre-command hook finally stopped it.
· 3 min read
I Built a Website That Puts Cities Back Among Their Mountains and Rivers
Guanqi places Chinese cities in interactive 3D terrain with mountains and rivers. Change the view, make it rain or turn to night over Hangzhou, Dali and more.
· 5 min read
I Built a Bead Pattern Generator That Turns Photos into Patterns in Seconds
Drop in a photo, pick a bead brand and get an exact, color-coded pattern plus a shopping list in 30 seconds. How Bitbead matches colors and skips backdrops.
· 4 min read
Bringing Nearly Lost Folk Games Back, Stroke by Stroke: Making the Folk Game Hall
How I rebuilt Chinese games once scratched in the dirt, like Cannons vs. Soldiers and Tigers and Sheep, as a free web game hall with real textures and smart AI.
· 6 min read
A Museum Map in Xi'an Made Me Lay Tang Dynasty Chang'an Over the Modern City
A map in the Shaanxi History Museum inspired a web map that overlays Tang Dynasty Chang'an, ward by ward, on the streets of modern Xi'an. Drag a coin to travel.
· 6 min read
