25 Minute Timer
This is a free online 25 minute timer built for focus. Press start and it counts down a full 25 minutes, then rings and rolls you into a 5-minute break. You can also press “Float” to pop the countdown into a small always-on-top window that stays visible while you work in another app.
Twenty-five minutes is the original interval, and it is what almost everyone means when they say “a pomodoro.” Francesco Cirillo settled on it in the late 1980s as a university student, timing his study sessions with a tomato-shaped kitchen timer — pomodoro is Italian for tomato, which is the whole story behind the name. This page is preset to that classic 25/5 rhythm: press Start, work until it rings, then take the five-minute break it rolls you into.
The full method is a short protocol, not just a countdown, and following it properly is the difference between the technique working and it being a timer you ignore. Decide on the single task first. Start the timer. Work on that task and only that task until it rings. Take a five-minute break away from the work. After four rounds, take a longer break — traditionally twenty to thirty minutes — before starting the next set. The structure matters because each part carries weight: the single task prevents drift, the fixed end prevents the session sprawling, and the break is what makes the following round sustainable rather than progressively worse.
Cirillo's most important and most ignored rule is that a pomodoro is indivisible. There is no such thing as half a pomodoro. If you break off to answer a message in the middle of one, that round does not count — you void it and start fresh. This sounds pedantic until you use it, at which point it becomes the useful part: it converts “I'll just quickly check this” from a free action into one that visibly costs you something. For interruptions you cannot refuse, the standard handling is to acknowledge the person, agree a time to deal with it, note it down, and get back to the block — the interruption gets scheduled rather than served immediately.
There is nothing biologically special about the number itself, and it is worth being honest that the technique is a practitioner's system rather than a clinically tested intervention. What twenty-five minutes has going for it is practical: it is long enough to get past the first few minutes of warm-up and into real work, short enough that committing to it does not feel like a decision, and short enough that a lost round is cheap. It also divides an hour tidily into two blocks and their breaks, which is why it slots so easily around meetings and lectures.
The most common mistakes are all variations on skipping the break. People finish a strong round, feel the momentum, and push straight into the next — which works for two or three rounds and then produces an afternoon of steadily degrading attention that feels like productivity. The other frequent failure is treating a phone as a break: five minutes of feeds is not attention recovery, and it reliably runs long. Finally, do not fight the length when it is genuinely wrong for the task. If you spend every round just reaching flow as the bell goes, the block is too short — move up to a 50/10 rhythm or a full 90-minute cycle. If you cannot get started at all, drop to ten or five minutes instead of failing at twenty-five.
Practically: the countdown runs against a real wall-clock deadline rather than a counter inside the page, so a round stays exactly accurate even if you switch tabs, lock the screen, sleep the laptop, or reload — which matters here, because a 25-minute block you cannot trust is a block you keep checking. Press Float to pop the countdown into a small always-on-top window that sits over your editor or document, allow notifications for a desktop alert at the bell, and use the presets (15/3, 50/10, 90/20) or a custom length when the classic ratio is not the right fit. Completed rounds are tallied locally in your browser, so the count of finished pomodoros is yours alone — no account, nothing sent anywhere.
Other timer lengths
From the blog
Frequently asked questions
Why is a pomodoro 25 minutes?
It was Francesco Cirillo's own choice when he devised the method as a student, not a figure derived from research. In practice it holds up because it is long enough to get past warm-up into real work, short enough that starting does not feel like a commitment, and short enough that losing a round to an interruption is cheap. It also splits an hour neatly into two blocks with their breaks.
What is the full 25-minute Pomodoro cycle?
Pick one task, run a 25-minute block on it and nothing else, then take a five-minute break away from the work. Repeat that four times, then take a longer break of roughly twenty to thirty minutes before the next set. Each part does a job — the single task stops drift, the fixed end stops sprawl, and the breaks are what keep later rounds as good as the first.
What happens if I get interrupted during a pomodoro?
In the original method a pomodoro is indivisible: if you break off to do something else, that round is voided and you start a fresh one. For interruptions you cannot refuse, acknowledge the person, agree a specific time to deal with it, write it down, and return to the block. The rule sounds strict, but it is the part that makes "I'll just quickly check this" feel like it costs something.
Should I skip the break if I'm in flow?
Occasionally, but it is the most common way people break the technique. Pushing through works for two or three rounds and then produces steadily worse attention that still feels like productivity. If you are genuinely in deep flow on work that needs long runway, that is a sign to switch to a 50/10 or 90/20 rhythm rather than to run 25-minute blocks without rest.
What should I do during the 5-minute break?
Change what your attention is doing — stand up, walk, get water, stretch, look out of a window. Avoid another screen. Feeds and messages are absorbing and hard to stop after five minutes, so they tend to consume the break and part of the next block as well.
Is 25 minutes the right length for everyone?
No, and treating it as sacred is a mistake. If you regularly hit flow just as the bell rings, the block is too short and you should move up to 50 or 90 minutes. If you cannot start a 25-minute block at all on a given day, drop to ten or five minutes — a shorter round you actually begin beats a classic one you keep postponing.
Does the 25 minute timer keep running in the background?
Yes. It counts down against a real clock deadline rather than ticking inside the page, so it stays accurate through tab switches, a locked or sleeping screen, and reloads. Press Float for a small always-on-top window if you want the countdown visible over your editor without keeping a browser tab in view.
Does it track how many pomodoros I have completed?
Yes — finished rounds are counted and stored locally in your browser, so you can see how many you completed today and in total. Nothing is sent to a server and there is no sign-up; clearing your browser storage clears the history.