25 min work / 5 min rest × 4 rounds
Pomodoro Timer
The Pomodoro Technique was named after a tomato-shaped kitchen timer that Francesco Cirillo used as a university student in the late 1980s, and the mechanics have barely changed since: you work in a fixed block, you rest in a fixed block, and you repeat. This timer ships with the canonical rhythm — 25 minutes of focused work, then a 5-minute break, four times through, with the phases advancing automatically so you are never tempted to check the clock or fumble for a button in the middle of a thought. It tends to suit people whose work has no natural stopping points: developers, writers, students revising, anyone whose task is large and vague enough that starting is the hard part. A 25-minute commitment is small enough to begin without dread and long enough to reach real concentration. After the fourth round, step away for a longer break of 15 to 30 minutes before starting the next set. The part most people skip is the rule that makes the technique work: a Pomodoro is indivisible. Once it is running you either protect the full 25 minutes or you void it — there is no pausing to answer a message and resuming. When something pulls at your attention, the discipline is to jot it down and keep going rather than switch tasks. The non-obvious tip: the timer is not really the point — the interruption log is. Keep a scrap of paper beside you and make a tick every time you feel the urge to break focus, splitting internal urges (checking your phone) from external ones (a colleague at your desk). After a few sessions the tally, not the countdown, is what changes your behaviour, because it makes visible how often you self-interrupt and what actually causes it. One honest note on alerts: the sound and the on-screen banner fire reliably while this tab stays open, even when it is in the background — though a backgrounded browser tab can delay the chime by up to a minute to save power. Close the tab and nothing can ping you, because there is no server behind this timer by design. On an iPhone, flip the side mute switch off, or you will watch the timer end in silence.
Pomodoro
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Frequently asked questions
- Why 25 minutes of work and 5 of rest?
- That is the interval Cirillo settled on — long enough to reach real focus, short enough to commit to without procrastinating, with a 5-minute break so attention recovers before the next block. You can change both, but 25/5 is the tested default.
- What am I meant to do during the 5-minute break?
- Genuinely step away from the task — stand, stretch, look out a window, get water. Avoid starting anything absorbing like a new email thread or a video, which tends to overrun the break and eat into the next work block.
- What happens after the four rounds finish?
- That is one full set. Take a longer break of 15 to 30 minutes, then start the timer again for the next set. The long break is what keeps the method sustainable across a whole day rather than just an hour.
- Will it keep running if I switch to another tab or app?
- Yes. The count is based on the actual end time, not on the tab staying in front, so it stays accurate. The finish alert may arrive up to a minute late while the tab is backgrounded, and if you fully close the tab nothing can notify you — there is no server. Reopen the page and it shows exactly how long ago the session ended.
- Can I share my exact setup?
- Yes — the copy-link button encodes your work and rest lengths and round count into the URL, so a study partner can open the identical timer with one click.
This timer keeps the exact time even if you switch tabs. If this tab or your browser closes, nothing can alert you at the exact finish time — there's no server behind this, by design. Come back any time and we'll tell you honestly how long ago it ended.