What the pomodoro technique is
Work in one unbroken stretch of twenty-five minutes, then stop for five. That block is a pomodoro. After four of them, take a longer break of fifteen to thirty minutes. Francesco Cirillo named it in the late 1980s after the tomato-shaped kitchen timer he used as a student.
The length matters less than the shape of it. Twenty-five minutes is short enough that starting feels cheap, and long enough to get somewhere. The break is not a reward for finishing — it is part of the method, and skipping it is how people burn out on the technique within a week.
How to use it
- Decide what the next twenty-five minutes are for. One thing, specific enough to know when it is done.
- Start the timer and work on only that.
- When something unrelated occurs to you, write it down rather than chasing it. It will still be there in five minutes.
- When the timer ends, stop — even mid-sentence. Knowing where you were makes restarting easy.
- Take the break away from the screen. Stand up, look out of a window, get water.
- After four rounds, take a longer break.
An interruption you cannot avoid ends the pomodoro. Do not try to pause and resume around it — start a fresh one afterwards. The point is a protected stretch of attention, and a half-interrupted one is not that.
About this timer
It counts against the clock rather than ticking a counter down, so switching tabs or locking your screen does not slow it. Browsers throttle background timers, which is why many web timers quietly drift or freeze; this one reads the actual time on every update, so when you come back the number is right.
Two short beeps mark the end of an interval. Your finished rounds are counted for the day and kept in your own browser — there is no account, no server storing anything about you, no analytics and no ads. Press Space to start or pause without reaching for the mouse.
Common questions
Does it keep running if I switch tabs?
Yes. The countdown is derived from wall-clock time, so a background tab stays accurate. The display catches up as soon as the tab is visible again.
Why twenty-five minutes?
It is a starting point, not a rule. Some people work better on 50/10, and the 52/17 split gets quoted often. Try the standard interval for a week before changing it — the common mistake is tuning the numbers instead of protecting the time.
What if I finish early?
Use the remainder on the same task: review what you did, tidy it, or plan the next step. Resist starting something new, which turns the block back into ordinary multitasking.
Is it free?
Yes, entirely, with no account and nothing to install.