When I want to focus on a particular task and get away from things that prevent me from giving my all to them. If it’s something that I can’t control and I need a sense of hyperfocus, I turn to a pomodoro timer. If you’re unsure what a Pomodoro timer is let me briefly explain:

A Brief History About The Pomodoro Technique

The Pomodoro timer is a time-management technique developed by Francesco Cirillo. How it works is, you set a timer for a given amount of time, say 25 – 30 minutes. Where you’ll take a short break between the intervals, say around 5 minutes. During the course of that time, you need stay focused on the task.

You absolutely shouldn’t let outside objects distract you during this focus session or the reason for it would be lost, because when distracted it takes longer to get back lost focus. When you’re working on the task, using the Pomodoro technique you’ll enter a state of hyper focus.

Timing Yourself for The Better

While it’s pretty easy to setup a Pomodoro timer using a timer on your phone, computer and the like. You can use apps to help boost your productivity, one which I’ve grown fond of: Focus Keeper, available on the IOS app store.

Focus Keeper, does all the handling of a Pomodoro timer, with the addition of a very easy to use interface paired with clock ticking sounds for the authentic feeling. What I liked most about the app was how simple and intuitive it was to use. Upon downloading, it’s just a matter of some mental prep and pressing the big play button to start working on your task.

Rounds and Goals

Rounds, which are the intervals of time you spend studying, give you a way to track you progress. When you’ve completed 4 rounds (or whatever number you chose for rounds) you add 1 goal.

When you’ve completed these goals, you’ll get a really long break to do whatever you wish to do. The breaks are usually 25 minutes long, but you can adjust to however you like.

I do wish, that I could’ve edited the amount of goals and rounds I could reach without paying for a premium. However, the app kept it rather comfortable around the range of the goals. So I didn’t feel too burdened with keeping up with them.

One really great feature built-in is having a way to chart your times, this way you can see on which days you felt you performed better and analyze how you can better spend your time efficiently. Although, you’re a bit limited if you’re on the free version, as you can only get up to 3 days worth of data.

Study Improvements

Included features aside, I’d like to mention how I felt after doing the rounds and goals. Hearing the ticking noise, at first seemed to annoy me, but as time went by it acted as a way to keep me focused. I knew that I was still on the clock, so I couldn’t get distracted.

What’s more, taking breaks definitely felt rewarding and it felt more compelling to read a book rather than do something like watch TV. I felt motivated to plan what I really wanted to do on my break.

Whats especially great is that Focus Keeper, automates the focus/break process. Once your allotted time is up from your focus session. The clock will automatically shift to break mode and start counting down, so you know when you should quit. The clock ticking noise for break mode even adjusts to let you know you’re still on your break.

This kind of painless turnover really benefited me as I studied. I felt so on track with much of my work that Focus Keeper gave a boon to my productivity. Focus Keeper proved exceptionally useful for me and because of this, I can say for certain that I recommend this app.