About PomoLife
A focus timer where the time you spend working grows something.
Most study timers are a number counting down and a bar filling up. They tell you how much time is left, which is exactly the thing you do not want to be thinking about while you work. PomoLife replaces the bar with a hillside. You start a session, and an acorn in the soil splits, puts out a shoot, and becomes an oak. By the time the session ends the tree is full and carrying apples. Glance at it and you know roughly how far through you are without reading a number.
How it works
The default is the standard Pomodoro cycle of twenty-five minutes of work and five minutes off, and both are adjustable. When the tree finishes growing, the break opens somewhere else in the world: the great hall of the castle, the market square, or the library at the top of the tower.
Every break starts with one minute for your body before anything else. Drink some water, stand up and stretch, look out of the window for twenty seconds, do twenty star jumps, go to the loo. Ten prompts, rotating. Then a small puzzle for what is left of the break: a word riddle, matching pairs, a four-by-four sudoku, or sliding tiles. Solve it and you get a fresh one. There are hints if you want them.
Things you can poke
The hill is not a still picture. Click the grass and the wind comes up through it. Click the tree and leaves come loose. A dog wanders past every so often, and will stop if you click him. Children play out across the valley in the afternoons. There is a day and night switch in the bar at the bottom, and clicking whoever is sitting under the tree changes them. There are four to choose from.
Who it is for
Students from about thirteen upward: GCSEs, A-levels, IB, university, and anyone else who works in sittings. It is not designed for young children, and it is not a substitute for a proper revision plan. It is the thing that gets you to start, and the thing that makes you stop and drink some water.
What it does not do
- No account. There is nothing to sign up for.
- Nothing is stored. Your rounds, puzzles and time are held in the page while it is open and are gone when you close the tab. Nothing is sent anywhere.
- No tracking by us. See the privacy page for the full picture, including what advertising does.
That last one is a deliberate trade. It means the site cannot show you a history or a streak, because it genuinely does not know who you are. If you want to keep a record of a day, the “Finish for today” button gives you a line you can copy and send to someone.
Why it was made
Because a timer you actively want to look at is a timer you will use, and because the break is the part everyone skips. Five minutes of scrolling is not a break for the parts of your attention you have just been using. Five minutes of standing up, drinking water and doing a small puzzle in a different room is.