Focus Tools: A Free Visual Timer, Task Splitter and Printables

The colored disc shrinks as time runs out, so you can see how much is left from across the room without reading numbers.

It starts at 25 minutes of focus and 5 minutes of break, the lengths the Pomodoro Technique uses, with a longer break after every fourth session. Change any length, or pick a preset. Full screen works well on a classroom projector.

Background tabs and sound. The timer counts from the clock, not from ticks, so it stays accurate when you switch tabs. The chime is scheduled the moment you press Start, which means it should play on time even if your browser slows down a background tab. Phones may silence it in ring-silent mode. If your device sleeps, the time will still be right when you come back.

“Write the paper” is not a step. Nobody can start it, because it doesn’t say what to do in the next five minutes.

Type the task, pick what kind of task it is, and the splitter lays out a list of small steps with rough times. It uses fixed templates written for each kind of task, not AI, so it works offline and never sends your words anywhere. Then make it yours: rewrite steps, change the minutes, delete what doesn’t apply.

If even step one feels like too much, press Make step 1 smaller. Twice, if you need to.

Why small steps help

In a classic study by Albert Bandura and Dale Schunk, children who were behind in math worked through a self-paced program. The ones who set a small goal for each session (a set number of pages) made faster progress, ended up more confident, and grew more interested in arithmetic than children working toward one distant goal. The distant goal had no measurable effect.⁵

A good step passes three tests: you can picture yourself doing it, you know when it’s finished, and it fits inside one timer. “Find three sources” passes. “Research” doesn’t.

Pair the first step with a time and place and it gets more likely to happen. Across 94 studies, plans written as “if it’s 3 p.m. at the library, then I open the draft” had a medium-to-large effect on whether people followed through.⁶

Some people focus better with a pencil than a screen. These sheets work on their own, with any timer.

All four are US Letter, print fine in black and white, and are licensed CC BY 4.0, so a teacher or librarian can copy them for a class.

Francesco Cirillo worked out the method in the late 1980s as a university student, using a kitchen timer shaped like a tomato. Pomodoro is Italian for tomato.¹

Cirillo’s own explanation is in his book, The Pomodoro Technique, and on his site at pomodorotechnique.com. Pomodoro® and Pomodoro Technique® are registered trademarks of Francesco Cirillo.² This page and its timer are independent and not affiliated with him.

The basic cycle

1. Choose one task. Just one. Write it down.
2. Set a timer for 25 minutes.
3. Work on that task only until the timer rings. If something else pops into your head, jot it down and go back.
4. Mark the session done. A tally mark on paper is enough.
5. Take a short break, about 5 minutes. Stand up and get away from the screen.
6. After four sessions, take a longer break, roughly 15 to 30 minutes.

When someone interrupts

Cirillo’s book separates interruptions into two kinds.¹ Some come from inside: the urge to check a message or look something up. Write the urge on your sheet and keep going; most of them can wait 20 minutes. Others come from outside: a person, a call. If it can wait, say when you’ll get back to them and write that down. If it can’t, stop the timer, deal with it, and start a fresh session afterward rather than counting the broken one. The tally sheet has columns for both kinds, which shows you over a week where your interruptions really come from.

Adjusting the lengths

Twenty-five minutes is a convention, not a finding. Nothing shows it’s the best length for everyone. Writers who need a long run-up often prefer 50 minutes with a 10-minute break. If 25 minutes feels impossible today, 10 or 15 is a real session too. Pick the longest block you can actually stay with, and lengthen it later if you want.

Common mistakes

• Skipping the breaks because you’re on a roll. Sometimes that’s fine. Done every time, it usually ends in a crash an hour later.
• Spending the break on your phone. Scrolling for five minutes often turns into twenty. A walk to refill a water bottle ends on its own.
• Timing a task that isn’t a task. “Study chemistry” gives the timer nothing to aim at. Run it through the task splitter first.
• Judging the method on day one. Give it a week of ordinary days before you decide.

A Pomodoro session is a fixed slice of effort. A timebox is a fixed amount of time given to a whole task, decided in advance, with a hard stop.

You decide how much the task deserves (“the lab write-up gets 90 minutes, Tuesday, 2 to 3:30”), put it on the calendar, and when the time is up you stop and look at where you are. Then you choose: call it done, or give it another box later. The point is that the decision happens on purpose instead of the task quietly eating the afternoon.

How to timebox a day

1. List what has to happen today. Keep it short.
2. Give each task a box of time. Before guessing, think about how long the last similar task actually took.
3. Write each box onto your schedule with a start and end time, breaks included.
4. When a box ends, stop. Write down where you are and what’s next.
5. At the end of the day, compare planned with actual. The timeboxing planner has columns for this.

The Pomodoro Technique is popular far beyond its evidence base. There are few controlled studies of it. Here’s what exists.

Timed breaks versus taking breaks when you feel like it

In a 2023 study at a Dutch university, 87 students studied for a session under one of three conditions: breaks whenever they chose, a 6-minute break after every 24 minutes (Pomodoro-style), or a 3-minute break after every 12 minutes.³

Students who chose their own breaks studied in longer stretches and took longer breaks. They also reported more fatigue and distraction, and less concentration and motivation, than the students on fixed schedules. All three groups got through about the same amount of work, so the fixed-break students did it in less total time.

Short breaks in general

A 2022 meta-analysis pooled 22 study samples (2,335 people) on “micro-breaks” of 10 minutes or less. Breaks gave a small but real lift to feelings of energy and a small drop in fatigue. The effect on performance overall was not statistically significant; it showed up mainly on less demanding tasks.⁴ A fair summary: short breaks reliably help you feel better, and help you do better on some kinds of work.

Small goals and if-then plans

The task splitter rests on firmer ground. Bandura and Schunk’s study is one of the classic findings on close, small goals,⁵ and if-then plans have a large body of evidence behind them.⁶ Steel’s review of procrastination research found that tasks people find unpleasant are among the ones they put off most.⁸ A tiny, clear first step is less unpleasant than a vague, huge one.

The hardest minute of a work session is often the first one. Two low-tech habits make that minute easier.

Body doubling has a large following among people with ADHD, but formal research on it is thin. We know of no controlled trials. Treat it as something to test for yourself: try three sessions with a body double and three without, and compare.

Teachers, libraries and learning centers can put the focus timer on their own page: a library guide, a course site, a classroom slide.

Copy the code below and paste it into an HTML or embed block. The timer loads from our site, has no ads, sets no cookies and sends no data back.

The second line is an optional credit link to this page with our name as the link text. You’re welcome to remove it. It isn’t a condition of use.

Here’s what the embedded timer looks like: