Custom Pomodoro timer

How to use the online timer

The standard splits are a starting point, not a rule, and the right ratio depends on the work and on the person doing it. Shallow, easily interrupted tasks, replying to messages, filing, tidying up a spreadsheet, survive short blocks perfectly well. Work that takes twenty minutes to get into needs a block long enough to make that investment worthwhile, which is why writers often end up somewhere near ninety minutes and fifteen.

Two things are worth watching when setting your own numbers. First, whether the break actually restores anything, since a break too short leaves fatigue building across rounds and one too long makes restarting genuinely difficult. Second, whether the block ends with the work still flowing or with attention already gone, because a block that consistently ends ten minutes after your concentration did is too long by about ten minutes.

Test a ratio across several sessions rather than one, since any single session can be thrown by a bad night's sleep or an awkward task. It is also reasonable to run different splits for different work in the same day. Whatever the numbers, the principle does not change: undivided attention during the block, and a genuine step away during the break rather than a change of screen.