Pomodoro timer
Runs in your browser · keep this tab visible
Twenty-five minutes of focus, then five off, and after four rounds a longer break of fifteen. The timer moves between the blocks by itself and chimes at each change, so you never have to reset it.
How to use the Pomodoro timer
Francesco Cirillo named the technique after a tomato-shaped kitchen timer in the late 1980s, and the specific numbers matter less than the two rules people skip. The first is that a Pomodoro is indivisible: if you break off halfway, that round did not happen. The second is that the break is mandatory: its purpose is to make the next round possible, and skipping it is why people find the technique stops working after a day. Twenty-five and five are a starting point, not doctrine; plenty of people do better on fifty and ten once they have the habit.
What people use it for
- Starting on something that has been put off for a week
- Breaking an evening of revision into rounds rather than one open-ended session
- Getting away from the screen at intervals instead of working straight through
- Finding out how many rounds a piece of work actually costs
- Holding a deliberate stopping point when a task has no natural one
Questions
It is short enough to start when you do not feel like starting, and long enough to get somewhere. The number came from a kitchen timer, not from research.
Note the interruption and keep going if you can. If you genuinely have to stop, that round does not count: the rule is that a Pomodoro is indivisible.
Yes, and it is the part people drop first. The break is what makes the next round work; without it the technique fails by the second afternoon.
The clock stays correct and the phases still advance, so you come back to the right block with the right time left. What a background tab cannot promise is the chime at the changeover, because browsers throttle timers there. If the sound is what tells you to stop, keep the tab visible.
Not on this page. Fifty and ten suit some people better once the habit is there.
No. Nothing is stored, counted or uploaded — the round count resets when you leave.