The Pomodoro technique for studying: what to do in each 25 minutes

The Pomodoro technique for studying means working in fixed blocks, classically 25 minutes of focused study followed by a 5-minute break, with a longer break after every four blocks. It helps with starting and with staying on one task, and a 2023 classroom study found students on fixed breaks reported less fatigue and better concentration than students who chose their own breaks. A timer only controls when you study, though, and says nothing about what you do in the block. This guide covers the five steps, whether 25/5 or 50/10 is better, the research, and what to put inside each pomodoro so the time turns into learning.

What the Pomodoro technique is

Francesco Cirillo came up with it as a university student in the late 1980s, timing his study with a kitchen timer shaped like a tomato. Pomodoro is Italian for tomato, and each block is called a pomodoro. The rules are simple: one task per block, no switching, a real break when the timer goes off.

Two things make it useful for students. Committing to 25 minutes is easier than committing to "revising chemistry", so it gets you started. And because the break is guaranteed, the urge to check your phone has somewhere to go.

The 5 steps of the Pomodoro technique

1. Choose one taskSmall and specific: "answer the 8 practice questions on enzymes", not "biology". If it will take more than four pomodoros, split it.
2. Set a timer for 25 minutesPhone face down in another room, or on focus mode. A physical timer or a browser tab is better than a phone app you then have to pick up.
3. Work until it ringsOnly on that task. If something unrelated comes to mind, write it on a scrap of paper and go back. If you finish early, use the rest of the block to check your work.
4. Take a 5-minute breakStand up, get water, look out of a window. Scrolling counts as a break in name only, because it is hard to stop after five minutes.
5. Every four pomodoros, take a long break15 to 30 minutes. Eat something, walk. Then plan the next set of four.

Is the Pomodoro technique good for studying?

For getting the hours in, it has some evidence behind it. Biwer and colleagues followed students through real self-study sessions in three groups: breaks they chose themselves, a 6-minute break after every 24 minutes, or a 3-minute break after every 12 minutes [1]. The students who chose their own breaks studied in longer stretches and took longer breaks, and reported more fatigue and distraction and less concentration and motivation. They did not get more done. The groups on fixed breaks finished about as much work in less time.

Note what that study measured: mood, effort and how much of the task got done. It did not test whether students remembered more a week later. Whether you learn in those 25 minutes depends on what you do in them. Dunlosky and colleagues' review of ten study techniques rated practice testing and spacing your study out over time as the two most useful, and rated rereading and highlighting as low [2].

Is Pomodoro 50/10 or 25/5 better?

There is no good evidence that one length is better for learning. Pick by the task:

• 25/5 for starting when you do not want to, for flashcards and short question sets, and for tired evenings. The short block keeps the bar low.
• 50/10 for work that takes ten minutes to get into: a long problem, an essay, rebuilding a lecture from memory. A 25-minute block can end just as you get going.
• Your own length once you know where your focus drops. If you keep checking the clock at minute 18, try 20/5. Keep the breaks fixed either way, since the Biwer study suggests that is where the benefit came from.

What to do inside each pomodoro

Give each block one job, and make most of the jobs ones where you have to produce something from memory. A useful pattern is to alternate input and output:

A pomodoro with no output in it is easy to spot afterwards: you cannot say what you got wrong.

A two-hour session, planned

Here is one set of four 25-minute pomodoros for a biology unit on the cell cycle, a week before a test.

1. Review (25 min). Due flashcards from last week's unit, then a ten-question quiz on it. Write down the three you missed.
2. Input (25 min). Read the section on mitosis once, carefully, with the diagram. Do not take notes yet.
3. Output (25 min). Book closed: draw the phases and write what happens in each. Then open the book and correct it in a second colour.
4. Repair (25 min). The corrected parts become flashcards. Answer five exam-style questions on mitosis, and redo the three misses from block one.

Then a 30-minute break. That is about 100 minutes of work, and three of the four blocks made you retrieve something.

Running the session on a board

The timer can be anything. What a board adds is that every block's work lands in one place and the output blocks have something ready to test you.

In Bord, keep one board per course. Input blocks can be your own reading, a section that Ask lays out from your slides or chapter, or a short lesson from Tutor, which teaches out loud and draws as it goes. Output blocks happen in the notebook: a blank patch of the board for your blurt or diagram, next to the source so the check takes seconds. For a review block, ask Quizbook for a round on last week's topic; it marks your answers and links each miss to the page it came from, which hands the repair block its list. Flashcards brings cards back when they are due, so the review block starts with what you are about to forget.

Bord does not have a timer. Use whatever you already use, and keep it off your phone if you can.

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