Pomodoro Timer

Set the lengths once, press Start and let the timer move you through the cycle. All settings sit beside the clock.

1. Set Focus session (minutes) (25 by default), Short break (minutes) (5) and Long break (minutes) (15).
2. Set Focus sessions before a long break. The default is 4.
3. Decide whether Start the next session automatically and Play a sound at the end of each session should be on. Both are ticked at first.
4. Press Start. A label shows Focus, Short break or Long break, and small dots show where you are in the cycle. The button turns into Pause and then Resume.
5. Work on one task until the sound. Press Skip to jump to the next phase, Reset to return to the first focus session, or Full screen for a large clock.

Space starts and pauses, and R resets while the timer is stopped, whenever the cursor is outside a text box. If you change a length while the timer is idle, the display updates at once. While it is running, the new length applies from the next phase.

The Pomodoro Technique was developed by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s and named after a tomato-shaped kitchen timer, since pomodoro is Italian for tomato. The classic pattern is 25 minutes of focus and a 5 minute break, with a longer break after four rounds. The timer follows exactly that: Focus, short break, Focus, short break, and so on, until the chosen number of focus sessions is done. Then a long break comes, and the cycle restarts. With the default settings and a 09:00 start, one cycle looks like this:

That is 130 minutes in all, of which 100 are focus. A second cycle starts at 11:10 and ends at 13:20, so a morning of two cycles holds eight sessions, 200 minutes of focus, in 4 hours 20 minutes. Prefer longer blocks? Try 50 for Focus, 10 for Short break, 30 for Long break and 2 sessions before a long break. One cycle then runs 140 minutes: 50 + 10 + 50 + 30. Lengths such as 90 and 20 suit some deep work better than 25 and 5, and the time converter helps when you plan a day in hours.

A line under the clock reads Focus sessions completed today. It is stored in this browser using local storage and starts again from zero each day. Only a focus session that runs to its end counts, so skipping one does not. Reset leaves the count alone. Because the count is per browser, it does not follow you to another phone or computer, and clearing site data erases it. It counts sessions that ran out, not work that was done: with automatic start on, the timer carries on through breaks even if you walked away.

People use the technique to get started on a task, limit distractions and notice how much they have done. There is no scientific proof that any one pattern works for everyone, so treat the lengths as settings to tune. If a session ends mid-sentence, lengthen it. If you drift after 15 minutes, shorten it.

• Page must stay open. The timer runs only while the page is open. A locked phone may pause the page and the sound.
• No task list, no notifications. Keep a short to-do list in the free online notepad and write down distractions there instead of acting on them.
• Tab title. It shows the phase and time left, such as Focus 12:30, so you can work in another tab.
• Single timing jobs. For one fixed interval use the countdown timer, and to learn how long a task really takes try the online stopwatch.

With automatic start off, the timer stops after each phase and waits for you to press Start, which suits work you want to wrap up before resting.