A calm Pomodoro timer, free in your browser

What is the Pomodoro Technique?

The Pomodoro Technique is a way of working in short, timed rounds. You focus on one task for 25 minutes, take a 5 minute break, and after four rounds take a longer break of 15 to 30 minutes. Francesco Cirillo came up with it as a student in the late 1980s and named it after his tomato-shaped kitchen timer: pomodoro is Italian for tomato.

It works because a round is short enough to start without dread and long enough to make real progress, and because the break is built in rather than something you have to remember to take. Many people stretch the rounds once the habit sets in; 50 minutes on and 10 off is a common next step.

How to use this timer

1. Pick a scene and a sound in Settings: a forest brook, ocean waves, rain or a coffee shop.
2. Choose how the clock runs with the stopwatch button: count up, count down, alternate focus and breaks, or classic Pomodoro rounds.
3. Press play, or the space bar. Your sound starts with the clock, and you can write down what you are working on.
4. When a focus round ends, a chime marks it (pick another, or none, in Settings), and in Intervals or Pomodoro the break starts on its own. Step away from the screen, then come back for the next one.

The timer keeps accurate time in a background tab and picks up where it left off if you reload. The help page has the details.

Popular timers

Each of these opens a timer already set to that rhythm, with a note on who it suits.

• 25/5 timer · the classic, and the place to start
• 50/10 timer · a full working hour for deep work
• 52/17 timer · long focus, long rest, from a productivity study
• 45/15 timer · lines up with the clock hour, good for study
• 30/5 timer · a little more runway than 25/5
• 90/20 timer · one or two big blocks of your hardest work

See all timers, including 20/5 for hard starts and 90/10 for long sessions.