Pomodoro Timer
25-minute focus sessions with short and long breaks.
Overview
The Pomodoro Timer runs the classic 25-minute focus session, followed by a 5-minute short break, with a longer 15- or 30-minute break after every four sessions. Press start to kick off a session, watch the countdown tick in real time, and pause or skip whenever you need. Session and break lengths are configurable for users who prefer alternatives like 50/10.
Useful for software engineers and writers fighting context-switching, students studying for exams, anyone with ADHD using time-boxing as a productivity strategy, designers managing creative fatigue, and teams running shared focus blocks during deep-work afternoons.
How it works
The Pomodoro Technique was developed by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s, named after a tomato-shaped kitchen timer ("pomodoro" is Italian for tomato). The canonical cycle is 25 minutes of focused work followed by 5 minutes of rest, with a longer 15-30 minute break after the fourth work session. The defaults here match those original numbers.
The timer is driven by the browser's Performance.now() clock rather than setInterval alone, so accumulated drift over a long session stays below a few milliseconds. The current state (session count, remaining seconds, phase) is persisted to local storage on each tick so a tab refresh resumes the timer exactly where it left off.
Examples
Default cycle: 25 min focus → 5 min break → 25 min focus → 5 min break
→ 25 min focus → 5 min break → 25 min focus → 15 min long break
Custom cycle: 50 min focus → 10 min break (recommended for deep coding work)
Mini cycle: 15 min focus → 3 min break (good for tasks you keep avoiding)
Long-session day: 4 cycles × ~2 hours = roughly 8 hours of structured work
FAQ
Why 25 minutes?
Cirillo settled on 25 minutes as a balance between long enough to enter flow and short enough that a single distraction does not destroy the slot. It is a starting point — many practitioners adjust to 50/10 or 90/20 for tasks needing deeper warm-up.
What happens if I get interrupted mid-session?
The classic rule is "if it is unavoidable, abandon the pomodoro and restart later." If it is not urgent, jot it on a deferred-tasks list and resume the timer. The technique is built around protecting the contiguous focus block.
Should I check email during breaks?
Cirillo recommends staying away from anything cognitively demanding during the 5-minute break — stretch, drink water, look out a window. Email keeps you in work mode and undermines the recovery.
Does it survive a tab refresh?
Yes — the timer state is persisted to local storage each second, so reloading the page picks up exactly where you left off. Closing the tab fully resets state by design.
Can I sync it across devices?
The timer is purely client-side and does not sync. For shared focus blocks across a team, agree on a start time and run individual timers in parallel.