Pomodoro Timer

A Pomodoro-style focus timer that alternates work sprints and breaks automatically, with a running count of completed rounds.

The Pomodoro Technique gets its name from a kitchen timer shaped like a tomato — pomodoro is Italian for tomato — that a student named Francesco Cirillo used in the late 1980s to force himself into short, focused work sessions instead of vague, unstructured study time. The method itself is almost embarrassingly simple: work for 25 minutes, take a 5-minute break, and after four of those cycles, take a longer break. What made it stick wasn't the timing itself so much as the psychological trick underneath it — a 25-minute commitment feels achievable in a way that "focus for the next three hours" doesn't, and the promised break removes the guilt of stepping away.

Decades later, the technique has outlived the physical tomato timer it was named after, mostly because the core insight holds up regardless of what's doing the timing: attention degrades faster than most people expect, and short, enforced breaks actually improve total output rather than reducing it. Digital versions like this one exist because most people doing focused work are already sitting in front of a screen, so a browser-based timer removes the friction of needing a separate physical object on your desk.

This version follows the classic structure by default — 25 minutes of work, 5-minute breaks, a longer break after four rounds — while staying flexible enough to adjust if your own attention span runs longer or shorter than the original recipe assumed. The sound at each transition is deliberately there so you don't have to keep glancing at the screen to know when to switch modes.

1. Set your focus length and break length in minutes.
2. Press Start to begin a focus round.
3. The timer automatically switches to a break when the round ends.
4. Your completed round count keeps growing as you work.