What is the Pomodoro technique?

A time-management method by Francesco Cirillo: work in focused 25-minute intervals ("pomodoros") separated by 5-minute breaks, with a 15–30 minute long break after every four pomodoros.

Does it work in the background?

Yes. The timer uses absolute timestamps, so even if the tab is throttled the transition still fires at the right wall-clock time. Sound and notifications require browser permission.

Can I sync sessions across devices?

No. State is stored only in your browser's local storage to keep the tool fully offline. Session counts reset when you clear browser data.

Is my session data sent anywhere?

No. Everything runs locally in the browser.

25/5 · long break · notifications · live

The classic Pomodoro timer

Default 25 minutes of focus, 5 minutes of break, with a long break every fourth round. Customize minutes and let browser notifications nudge you.

Pomodoro Timer

Phase

Focus

current

Remaining

25:00

mm:ss

Completed

pomodoros

Status

idle

state

input · controls

Every 4 focus rounds, the break lengthens to 15 minutes.

output · timer

Focus

25:00

Completed pomodoros: 0

Quick Start

How the Pomodoro technique works

Focus for 25 minutes (a pomodoro), then take a 5-minute break. After four pomodoros, take a longer 15-30 minute break. Helps with attention regulation and burnout prevention.

01
Pick a task
Choose one thing to focus on for the next round.
Parsing accepts ISO 8601, RFC 3339, RFC 2822, and Unix epoch seconds/milliseconds. The Date constructor handles the rest with browser-engine consistency.
taskISO 8601RFC 3339epochlive
task · timestamp1 · ISO
```
one task
```
loaded · ISO 8601zone · ready
02
Start the focus
Press Start. Don't switch context.
All math runs in UTC internally to avoid DST landmines; presentation converts back to the user’s zone via Intl.DateTimeFormat.
focusUTC mathIntlDST-safelive
▶ · options25m · live
```
▶ 25:00
```
options applied · UTCDST-safe
03
Take the break
Stand up, breathe, hydrate.
Output respects the chosen timezone offset (Z vs +05:30) and pads digits per ISO conventions so sorts stay chronological.
breakoffsetzone-awaresortablepadded
↪ · computed5m · ready
```
↪ 5:00
```
computed · instantsortable
04
Long break every 4
Reward longer rest after sustained focus.
Copy writes via the Async Clipboard API; nothing pings a time server — the browser’s clock is the only oracle.
cycleclipboardno oracledeterministicclient-side
✓ · copiedready · done
```
long break
```
shipped · ready to shipsuccess

Pro tips

Time math without DST landmines

Always store UTC

Convert to local for display only. UTC storage avoids DST jumps and timezone drift in databases.

Watch leap seconds

POSIX time doesn’t count leap seconds; some systems do. Don’t use timestamps for sub-second precision across boundaries.

Prefer Temporal eventually

The Date API has many quirks. Temporal is shipping in modern engines and handles zones correctly.

Cron is timezone-tricky

Cron expressions run in the daemon’s local zone unless told otherwise. Pin a TZ explicitly for predictable runs.

ISO 8601 sorts naturally

YYYY-MM-DDTHH:mm:ss sorts correctly as a string. Don’t use US-style MM/DD/YYYY for anything machine-readable.

Beware Y2K38

Signed 32-bit Unix timestamps overflow in 2038. Use 64-bit storage end-to-end for long-lived systems.

Use Cases

When to Pomodoro

Focus, study, code.

Deep work

Push through the most difficult task on your list. Math runs in UTC under the hood to dodge DST jumps — local time is only for display. That means scheduling logic and date diffs survive March / November fall-back without the classic off-by-one-hour bug.

DST-safe

Study sessions

Cycle through subjects without burning out. Browser clock is the only source — no external time server, no privacy leak, no rate limit. Pair with NTP-synced server time for high-accuracy use cases, but for human-scale work the browser clock is plenty.

UTC-correct

Writing

Bash through a 25-minute first draft. ISO 8601 output sorts naturally as strings, perfect for filenames (report-2026-01-15.pdf) and log lines that need chronological ordering without parsing. Drop into S3 keys for free time-bucketing.

ISO-sortable

Coding

Bound an experiment to one pomodoro. Pairs cleanly with cron, scheduled tasks, and timestamped log analysis. The tool's output drops directly into APScheduler, Linux cron, or GitHub Actions schedule expressions without re-formatting.

spec-grade

Email triage

One round of inbox zero per pomodoro. Output respects the chosen timezone offset (Z vs +05:30) so REST APIs and database TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE columns round-trip cleanly. No ambiguity between "noon UTC" and "noon local".

zone-aware

Remote team

Sync your focus blocks with a teammate's. Confirms the difference between epoch seconds (10 digits) and milliseconds (13 digits) before you commit code that mis-multiplies by 1000 — a classic bug in cross-language time handling.

epoch-accurate

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Why 25 minutes?

Long enough to enter flow, short enough to avoid avoidance. Tweak to your attention span.

Does it need browser focus?

Yes — close the tab and the timer pauses.

Notifications?

On phase change. We ask permission on Start.

Skip a break?

Just hit Reset and start a new focus.

Is anything sent to a server?

No. The timer runs entirely in your browser.

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