🍅 Pomodoro Timer

The timer holds three durations and a cycle goal. By default these are 25 minutes of focus, a 5 minute short break, a 15 minute long break, and four focus sessions before a long break, matching Cirillo's original method. Each value can be edited in the settings panel.

When a focus session reaches zero the tool increments your session count, adds the focus duration to today's focus minutes, and switches mode. If the number of completed focus sessions is not yet a multiple of the cycle goal, the next mode is a short break; when it is, the timer switches to the long break instead and the cycle restarts. Breaks never count towards the focus total.

Three optional behaviours change what happens at each transition. Auto-start breaks begins the break automatically when work ends, auto-start work sessions begins the next focus period when a break ends, and a sound alert plays a short tone generated by the Web Audio API rather than a downloaded audio file. Browser notifications require explicit permission, which you grant from the settings panel.

Your durations, toggles and today's totals are written to local storage, so reopening the page restores your configuration.

Run the default settings and one complete cycle is four focus sessions of 25 minutes with a break after each. The first three breaks are short at 5 minutes, and the fourth is the long break at 15 minutes.

Focus time is 4 multiplied by 25, which is 100 minutes. Break time is 3 multiplied by 5, giving 15 minutes, plus the 15 minute long break, for 30 minutes. The full cycle therefore takes 130 minutes, or 2 hours and 10 minutes, and delivers 100 minutes of focused work. Roughly 77 per cent of the elapsed time is spent working.

After those four sessions the counter reads 4 sessions today and 1h 40m of focus, because focus minutes are calculated as sessions multiplied by your focus duration.

Now change the settings to a 50 minute focus block, a 10 minute short break, a 30 minute long break and a cycle goal of 3. One cycle becomes 3 times 50, or 150 minutes of focus, plus two short breaks of 10 minutes and one long break of 30, so 50 minutes of rest and 200 minutes in total. The same proportion of work to rest, in fewer, longer blocks.

The point of the technique is the commitment, not the countdown. A session is meant to be indivisible: if an interruption arrives, note it on paper and deal with it in the break rather than pausing. If you genuinely have to abandon a session, the honest move is to reset it rather than restart from where you stopped, because a broken block does not build the habit the method depends on.

Choose a focus length you can actually complete. Twenty-five minutes is a starting point, not a rule. Deep work such as writing or debugging often benefits from 45 to 50 minute blocks, because the context-rebuilding cost is paid less often, while unappealing admin tasks may need 15 minute blocks to get started at all.

Take breaks away from the screen. Standing up, moving and looking at something distant does far more for the next session than scrolling on a phone.

Two practical limits are worth knowing. The daily statistics live in your browser's local storage, so clearing site data or switching device resets them. Some browsers also throttle timers in background tabs, so keep the tab visible if precise timing matters.