What this page is set to
This page opens with the timer already set to the values below. Nothing to configure — just press start.
One full cycle of 2 focus sessions runs 130 minutes, 100 of which is focus time. Fill an eight-hour day with this split and you spend roughly 6.2 hours focused across about 7 sessions.
You can change any of these numbers under timer settings. Changes are saved for this page only, so they never overwrite the settings on the home page or on another preset.
- 50-minute focus
- 10-minute short break
- 20-minute long break
- Long break after every 2 focus sessions
When 50 minutes wins
Get cut off halfway through a hard problem and the next sitting starts with re-reading the question and reconstructing where you were going. That re-entry cost is invisible on a timesheet but it is real, and it is exactly what a longer block buys back. Fifty minutes is the most forgiving length for work of that shape.
It also lines up with the clock. Start on the hour and the break lands you back at the top of the next one, which makes an hour-by-hour plan actually hold. That is the same reason most lectures run this long.
Manage the back half
The weakness of a 50-minute block is minutes 30 to 50. Most people feel the drop. Writing down one line at the start of the session about where you intend to be by the end sharpens that second half more than any amount of willpower.
If the back half keeps collapsing anyway, drop to 40 minutes. The aim is the longest block you can hold at full density, not the longest block on paper.
The ten-minute trap
Ten minutes is exactly long enough to justify opening your phone, and phones rarely give the ten minutes back. That is where the recovery value of the longer break disappears.
- Stand up the moment the break starts; you are far less likely to reach for the phone on your feet.
- Jot one line about what the next session is for before you walk away — it makes the return quick.
- A 20-minute long break arrives after every two focus sessions. Put meals and walks there.
- You can leave the ambient sounds playing through the break so the return feels continuous.
Designing a single 50-minute session
The two minutes before a long session decide a lot of what happens inside it. Write one line describing what should exist when the timer ends. Not "maths" but "eight past-paper probability questions done and marked" — a sentence you can check off or not. Without it, fifty minutes tends to dissolve into flicking between tabs and notes.
When something intrudes mid-session — a message you should reply to, something you need to buy — do not deal with it. Write it on a scrap of paper. Once it is written down you no longer have to hold it in your head, and you can clear the whole list during the ten-minute break.
Use the final five minutes to wrap up rather than to start something new. Mark exactly where you stopped and what the next session opens with. The whole reason to choose a 50-minute block is to cut re-entry cost, and those five minutes carry that saving across the break.
- New to this split? Start with four sessions a day. Trying to fill eight 50-minute blocks from day one rarely survives the first week.
- Tag each session with one word when it ends — done, half, missed. After a week the right length for you becomes obvious.
- If most afternoon sessions come out as half or missed, drop just the afternoon to 40 minutes.
Questions about the 50/10 timer
Is 50 better than 25?
It depends entirely on the work. Expensive to resume, go long. Naturally divided into small pieces, go short.
Am I supposed to sit still for the whole 50 minutes?
Shifting position or drinking water breaks nothing. What costs you is moving your eyes to another screen.
Why a long break after only two sessions?
Two 50-minute blocks is already 100 minutes of focus, a similar load to four blocks of 25. You can change the interval in the settings.