Pomodoro Timer
25 minutes of focus, 5-minute breaks, a long break every 4th round — all automatic.
How the pomodoro technique works
Choose one task. Start a 25-minute focus session and work on nothing else. When it ends, take a 5-minute short break — stand up, stretch, look away from the screen. After four focus sessions, take a longer 15-minute long break. Then start again. The fixed rhythm removes the temptation to skip breaks and makes deep work feel finite.
| Action | Key |
|---|---|
| Start / Pause / Resume | Space |
| Skip to the next phase | S |
| Reset the whole cycle | R |
| Fullscreen | F |
Tips for a good session
- One task per pomodoro — write the task down before you press Start.
- Protect the break — a skipped break defeats the method; the auto-advance makes it easy to honour.
- Track your rounds — the four dots above the clock show where you are in the cycle.
- Adjust to your rhythm — some people focus better in 50/10 blocks. Settings are there for that.
Where the pomodoro came from
The method has a name and a story. Francesco Cirillo was a university student in Rome in the late 1980s, struggling to focus, and challenged himself to work just 10 minutes without distraction. The only timer he had was a tomato-shaped kitchen timer, pomodoro in Italian, and the name stuck. What made the technique stick for millions of people since is not the tomato, it is the contract: the timer decides when you stop, so you stop bargaining with yourself, and the recorded pomodoros turn "I worked all day" into a countable fact.
Adapting the cycle to your brain
The 25/5 default survives because it is small enough to start on a bad day. But it is a starting point, not a prescription. Long-form readers and developers often prefer 50/10, two honest work blocks per hour with the same protected break. People who dread starting do better with 15/3, because 15 minutes feels negotiable even on the worst day. What should not change is the break itself: unskipped, screenless, and long enough to actually reset. All four lengths are configurable in the settings panel above, and your values are saved on your device for next time.
Running a full pomodoro day
Planning in pomodoros changes how the day feels. Estimate each task in pomodoros the night before (write the report: 3, inbox: 1, calls: 2), then schedule the blocks into your calendar and let the cycle run. Five to eight honest pomodoros is a strong day for most knowledge workers; the count is humbling precisely because it is accurate. At the end, the day's pomodoro tally, written down next to what actually got done, becomes your data: estimates sharpen within a couple of weeks, and chronic over-estimation becomes visible instead of invisible.
What to do in the breaks (and what not to)
The break is part of the method, and its quality decides whether the next block is as good as the first. Good short-break activity moves the body and rests the eyes: stand, stretch, refill the water, look out a window at something distant. Bad short breaks open feeds and inboxes, they hijack attention with exactly the things the block was protecting you from, and five minutes becomes twenty. During the long break after four rounds, a genuine change of scene works best: a short walk outside beats another coffee at the desk.
Pomodoro for study, writing and chores
The cycle transfers wherever procrastination lives. For revision, one pomodoro per topic with the topic named before the block starts (see the study timers guide). For writing, the first pomodoro is often just opening the document and rereading yesterday's last paragraph, a deliberately small win that defeats the blank page. Even chores respond: a "clean the kitchen" pomodoro ends after 25 minutes whatever the state, which is what makes starting possible. The common thread is that the timer, not the task, defines done for that block.
Related tools
Timing a workout instead of work? The interval timer alternates work and rest automatically. Need a one-off alarm? The countdown timer has one-tap presets.