The Pomodoro technique for studying, what a 2023 study measured

Francesco Cirillo developed the technique in the late 1980s, as a student, with a kitchen timer shaped like a tomato, pomodoro in Italian (Cirillo, 2018). The principle is short. You choose a task, start a 25 minute timer, work on nothing else, then take a 5 minute break. After four blocks, you take a longer break.

The timer does two jobs. It makes starting easier, because 25 minutes feel doable even in front of a big chapter. And it forces the break before you wear yourself out, instead of putting it off until you drift away. The technique manages time, not the way you learn. What you do during the 25 minutes matters as much as the timer, more on that below.

Biwer, Wiradhany, Oude Egbrink and de Bruin followed 87 bachelor’s and master’s students at a Dutch university during a real day of self study. A group of 35 chose their breaks freely. A group of 25 worked for 24 minutes then took a 6 minute break, the Pomodoro version. A group of 27 worked for 12 minutes then took 3 minutes (Biwer et al., 2023).

Those who managed their own breaks had longer sessions and longer breaks, and this went with more fatigue and distraction, and less concentration and motivation than in the two fixed break groups. Effort invested and the amount of work completed were the same in all three groups. The authors conclude that planned breaks improved mood and seem to save time, for equivalent work (Biwer et al., 2023).

When you do the same task for a long time, vigilance drops. Ariga and Lleras gave participants a long visual attention task. Their performance fell over time, except when they were asked now and then to switch briefly to another task. Those short breaks were enough to prevent the drop (Ariga and Lleras, 2011).

Their explanation is that the brain gets used to the goal of a task that lasts too long, and that a break reactivates it. For you, the Pomodoro break plays that role. Stand up, drink some water, look out of the window. Avoid spending the break on a video feed, which tends to last far longer than 5 minutes. If your problem is fighting sleep, the page How to study without falling asleep or zoning out gives other measured levers.

Twenty five minutes of rereading is still rereading. Dunlosky and colleagues rated ten study techniques, and only two earned high utility, practice testing and spreading your reviews over time (Dunlosky et al., 2013). So a good study Pomodoro mixes learning and self testing. For example, 10 minutes to read part of the course, then 15 minutes to answer the questions on your cards from memory.

The last block of the day can go to what you learned two or three days ago, which adds spacing to the time blocks. The page Spaced repetition calculator, your review dates up to the exam tells you which days to come back to each chapter, and the page Active recall, why quizzing yourself beats rereading explains how to quiz yourself. The timer takes care of time, these two methods take care of memory.