Show HN: Tomato – Pomodoro Timer

Years ago a Buddhist monk recommended to me to set a bell every 30 minutes as a mindfulness practice. When you hear the bell, look up, bring your consciousness back to your breath for a few breaths, make sure you are aware of your body posture, especially when sitting in front of a computer, and then go back to what you were doing.<p>The pomodoro technique always reminds me of this.

Here&#x27;s a productivity tricks that works for me:<p>Reason why I stop working on a project is because after a while (or 10 minutes...), it just gets boring.<p>So I toggle between 3-4 similarly important projects a day. The excitement of doing something new when I switch helps me keep working (just on a different project).<p>Yes there is a cost to mentally switching regularly but it&#x27;s worth it to avoid the much higher cost of watching Youtube instead!

My favorite Pomodoro Timer is:<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;tomato-timer.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;tomato-timer.com&#x2F;</a><p>This one is lacking some features (I understand it aims to be minimalistic, but it cut flexibility on the process...)

Plug for <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;complice.co&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;complice.co&#x2F;</a> for group pomodoro&#x27;s. There&#x27;s a hacker news channel. Pretty interesting concept, especially for mobile workers who still want to &quot;chat&quot; with someone.

Nice. For those who&#x27;d like a todo list to go with their Pomodoro* timer, I&#x27;ve created Lanes: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;lanes.io" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;lanes.io</a>.<p>It tracks how many pomodoros you complete each day and how long you spent being productive. Plus you can see the aggregate # of poms completed by all users of the app (which I find motivating).<p>*Not strictly a Pomodoro as the timer can be adjusted, but hey that&#x27;s what the users wanted.

OP here - interesting to see not only how many developers on HN use the Pomodoro Technique but also how many have built their own app!

I just set a 25 minute time and forgot about it. The gong sound terrified me.

Another Pomodoro timer that assumes that a Pomodoro is 25 minutes, even though that was only an example that worked for the author.

I just use `notify-send` every 30 minutes... <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;dcousens&#x2F;dotfiles&#x2F;blob&#x2F;master&#x2F;.xinitstatusbar#L88-L94" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;dcousens&#x2F;dotfiles&#x2F;blob&#x2F;master&#x2F;.xinitstatu...</a>.

I use this <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;martakostova.github.io&#x2F;timer&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;martakostova.github.io&#x2F;timer&#x2F;</a> (compiled by myself) . It&#x27;s good becuase it can run script, so i can sete myself to a DND status on slack when the pomodoro is running and turn back online after that. E.g.f for start you can use a script like this<p>do shell script &quot;curl &#x27;<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;slack.com&#x2F;api&#x2F;dnd.setSnooze?token=&lt;yourtoken&gt;&amp;num_minutes=$duration&#x27;&quot;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;slack.com&#x2F;api&#x2F;dnd.setSnooze?token=&lt;yourtoken&gt;&amp;num_mi...</a>

I thought this was gonna be a post about cooking, I&#x27;m still not sure what this is

I love it! Doesn&#x27;t get much more minimal than that.<p>Here&#x27;s my relatively bloated pomodoro tracker: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;alexose.github.io&#x2F;pomodoro&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;alexose.github.io&#x2F;pomodoro&#x2F;</a>

Hi, nice one!<p>Just a suggestion, check the behaviour of the &quot;do_it&quot; div. If I click on it and then click outside without writing anything, the div will collapse leaving a blank area, and it will not be possible (or it will be very hard) to open it again.<p>I did one too before summer. Here&#x27;s mine <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;codepen.io&#x2F;gianc&#x2F;full&#x2F;oLdGAv" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;codepen.io&#x2F;gianc&#x2F;full&#x2F;oLdGAv</a><p>I&#x27;m still learning, any criticism and&#x2F;or advice is appreciated.

This is great. Now good luck resisting the urge to add just one more feature.<p>I really hope you don&#x27;t because there are other more feature-bloated timers out there. This seems perfect to me.

Is there an article outlining the idea behind these tomato timers, similarly to GTD or is it in reality just a simple system that I am trying to read too much into?

Nice work! A good, minimalist solution.<p>----<p>My personal favourite is Strict Workflow [1], which is a Chrome extension. It has the added benefit of preventing idle website browsing during a work phase.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;chrome.google.com&#x2F;webstore&#x2F;detail&#x2F;strict-workflow&#x2F;cgmnfnmlficgeijcalkgnnkigkefkbhd" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;chrome.google.com&#x2F;webstore&#x2F;detail&#x2F;strict-workflow&#x2F;cg...</a>

I get distracted by shiny things, so I made a low-distraction work timer <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.microsoft.com&#x2F;en-us&#x2F;store&#x2F;p&#x2F;low-distraction-work-timer&#x2F;9nblggh5r6z1" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.microsoft.com&#x2F;en-us&#x2F;store&#x2F;p&#x2F;low-distraction-work...</a><p>It moves pretty much imperceptibly so that it doesn&#x27;t distract from the task at hand.

I use Timebar, which is unfortunately no longer available through the Mac App Store. <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;lifehacker.com&#x2F;timebar-turns-your-macs-menubar-into-a-timer-484724310" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;lifehacker.com&#x2F;timebar-turns-your-macs-menubar-into-a...</a><p>It turns your entire top menu bar into a countdown bar which you can keep an eye on peripherally as you work.

My preferred behaviour for pomodoro timers is: start the break countdown automatically at the end of a pomodoro, but wait for the user to click to start the next pomodoro. Does it do that?<p>For everyone who has not tried the pomodoro technique (25 minutes focused work, 5 minutes everything else): give it a try! I&#x27;m constantly surprised at how much I can get done in 25 minutes.

I have a simple PS script to use at work (so I don&#x27;t have to install any extra applications, plus I can customize it easily). It shows the remaining time as well as a desktop notfication: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;maxlorenz&#x2F;ps-pomodoro" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;maxlorenz&#x2F;ps-pomodoro</a>

For a minimal OS X native app check out Pomodoro One. So simple and clean yet had a great impact on my productivity.

I made a pomodoro app for Linux based on taskwarrior. I have been using it for a while with free sync online ... <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;liloman&#x2F;pomodoroTasks" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;liloman&#x2F;pomodoroTasks</a>

Ah, memories. I did one of those, too, a few years ago: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;pomodoro-timer.org&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;pomodoro-timer.org&#x2F;</a><p>It even has an animated tomato, uses localstorage to save your work record, and makes ding in the end!

I really dig the aesthetic and simplicity of <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;luckyshot.github.io&#x2F;twentyfive&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;luckyshot.github.io&#x2F;twentyfive&#x2F;</a>

Yay. Here&#x27;s mine: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;xcvfd.com&#x2F;pomodoro" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;xcvfd.com&#x2F;pomodoro</a>

My favorite timer is pomotodo.com which merges a todo list with a pomodoro timer, and gives stats on completion rates.

I use Pymodoro in a dzen bar in a minimalist tiling windows manager. Really nice.

Can it send email?

Why is this on front page? It has two buttons and one text input.

I like and am at the same time annoyed that it is so simple.<p>One the one hand I have a doze features I&#x27;d like to have. On the other I know those are mostly time wastes.

Has anyone tried shocking themselves? I feel like this pomodoro idea is ripe for creative disruption.