Pomodoro Timer
Focus with 25-minute work blocks and short breaks. Tracks sessions across the day.
The Pomodoro technique
- Pick a task, start a 25-minute work block.
- Take a 5-minute short break. Repeat.
- After 4 blocks, take a longer 15-minute break.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Pomodoro Technique?
It is a time-management method by Francesco Cirillo that splits work into 25-minute focused intervals, called pomodoros, separated by short breaks. Every four pomodoros you take a longer break to recover.
Will the timer still alert me if I switch tabs?
Yes. We use the Web Audio and Notification APIs, so the alert sound plays even with the tab in the background. Allow notifications when prompted for the best experience.
Can I change the 25/5 default?
Absolutely. The defaults follow the classic technique, but you can set any focus and break duration you like, and the cycle counter still works.
Does it keep my session if I refresh the page?
The remaining time and current cycle are stored locally and restored on refresh, so an accidental reload will not destroy your progress.
Why 25 minutes, and what the breaks are actually for
Francesco Cirillo's technique... named after his tomato-shaped kitchen timer... uses 25-minute focus intervals because they are long enough to produce real work and short enough that starting feels trivially cheap. The breaks are not generosity; they are maintenance. Sustained attention measurably degrades, and five minutes of genuine disengagement (stand, water, window... not email) resets it. After four pomodoros, a longer 15-30 minute break consolidates the session. The cadence turns an amorphous workday into countable, finishable units, and counting them is where the motivation comes from.
Running it properly
- One pomodoro, one task. Name the task before starting; "work on stuff" produces 25 minutes of browsing.
- Interruptions get written down and deferred, not handled. If something truly cannot wait, the pomodoro is void... restart rather than half-count it.
- The pomodoro is indivisible: finishing early means reviewing or improving the work until the bell, which trains estimation.
- Track completed counts per day for two weeks; the realistic average (most knowledge workers land at 8-12, not 16) becomes your honest planning capacity.
Adapting the interval without breaking the idea
The 25/5 ratio is a default, not doctrine. Deep technical work often suits 50/10, where the warm-up cost of loading context amortises better; ADHD users frequently report 15/5 works where 25 fails; writers in flow sometimes abandon the timer mid-streak deliberately... interrupting genuine flow to honour a kitchen timer is missing the point. Keep the structure (pre-named task, protected interval, real break) and tune the numbers to the work.
What to do with the five minutes
Breaks fail when they are smaller versions of work. Email, chat and a "quick scroll" hold attention in the same channels the next pomodoro needs, so the rest never happens... five minutes pass and nothing recovered. Breaks that actually reset attention share a shape: physical, visual-distance, or ambient. Stand and stretch, refill water, look out a window (focusing eyes at distance relieves screen accommodation), step outside, do nothing identifiable. The test is simple: if the break activity could generate a notification, it is not a break. Guard the long break hardest... it is the one that prevents the 15:00 collapse.
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