Add A Pomodoro Timer To Your Mac’s Taskbar With This App

Add A Pomodoro Timer To Your Mac’s Taskbar With This App

If you’re looking for ways to be a bit more productive, the Pomodoro technique can be a good place to start. The technique, which was developed in the early 90s by developer Francesco Cirillo, involves breaking down large tasks into short, timed intervals. Cirillo called those intervals Pomodoros, in part because he timed them out using a kitchen timer that looked like a tomato.

Think of the short intervals like sprints. Instead of trying to handle this mammoth marathon-level task in a single sitting, you’re instead breaking it down into smaller more manageable parts. Working in smaller pieces helps prevent burnout, and can ultimately make a task go much faster, even though you’re taking breaks.

You can adjust the technique to what best suits you, but the general idea here is to work for 25 minutes and then take a five-minute break. After four sets of those, you take a single longer break of 15-30 minutes. After your mega break, you start the whole process over again.

It can be a really useful technique for long tasks, but it does have one distinct setback: You need a timer.

Pomo Timer is a Mac app that adds a tomato timer to the top of your Mac’s toolbar. With it you can time how long you’ve worked or breaker and keep track of how many sprints you’ve completed overall on a task. With the paid version you can also track those on a chart.


While you can definitely do the technique using the timer on your phone or any other clock you might have, having it on your desktop can make tracking the sprints and breaks a little easier, and can help you avoid those “I’ll just check Facebook for a few minutes…” moments when you’re starting and stopping the timer on your smartphone.

And of course, it looks like a tomato timer, for the old school feel.


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