Pommedoro: A Pomodoro Timer That Respects How Your Brain Works

Role: Developer

Technologies: Swift, AppKit, macOS

Platform: macOS 13+ (Apple Silicon & Intel)

A native macOS Pomodoro timer that eases you toward breaks with escalating edge gradients and actionable wellness suggestions—no alarms you reflexively dismiss, no modal dialogs. Transitions, not hard cuts.

The Problem with Traditional Pomodoro Timers

Most Pomodoro apps do the same thing: a timer counts down, an alarm fires, and a dialog demands your attention. You dismiss it. The break never happens. That’s not willpower failure—it’s design failure.

When you’re in flow, a sudden alarm is a context switch. We’re wired to reject those. So you click “dismiss” and keep working. Attention is a continuum; you can’t jump from full focus to full rest without a bridge. Transitions, not hard cuts, are the only way breaks actually occur.

How Pommedoro Works

Pommedoro eases you toward a break instead of ambushing you.

Phase 1: Escalating Awareness

In the last five minutes of a work session, soft teal gradients appear along the edges of all your screens. They fade in and out slowly. Over time they become more frequent and intense (e.g. every 60s down to every 2s, opacity from ~15% to ~75%). Your peripheral vision has been processing the change for five minutes before the break screen appears.

Phase 2: The Break Screen

At zero, the screen becomes a full teal overlay—not a dialog you dismiss, but the screen itself. It suggests concrete actions: “Stretch your neck and shoulders,” “Step outside for a minute of fresh air,” “Unclench your jaw and relax your shoulders.” You can mark a suggestion done, skip it, or permanently dismiss ones that don’t fit. A 5-minute break countdown runs in the background.

Phase 3: Reflection & Phase 4: Ready When You Are

After a suggestion, one short question: “How did that impact your readiness for the day?” (Feeling Great / About the Same / Not Really). Then a “Ready when you are” screen with Pause or Continue. You choose when to start the next 25-minute cycle.

Why This Works

The gradient approach uses the same channel as your focus: your visual field. Pommedoro gradually joins your environment instead of competing with it via alarm or modal. By break time, your brain has already been transitioning. Actionable suggestions (“do X”) give you a real context to switch into, instead of a vague “take a break.”

Features

How to Install Pommedoro

Following these steps will install and open Pommedoro on your Mac. No terminal commands needed—just download, drag, and go.

1. Download

Go to https://colinknapp.com/stories/pommedoro.html (or use the direct link: Pommedoro.dmg).

Click the "Pommedoro.dmg" link so the DMG downloads (usually to your Downloads folder).

2. Install

In Finder, open Downloads and double‑click Pommedoro.dmg.

When the disk image opens, drag Pommedoro into the Applications folder (or use the shortcut arrow if the window shows one).

Eject the disk (right‑click the "Pommedoro" volume in the sidebar → Eject, or drag it to the Trash).

3. If macOS says "Pommedoro can't be opened" or "move to Trash"

Don't trash it.

Go to System Settings → Privacy & Security.

Scroll down to the message about "Pommedoro was blocked…" (or "Pommedoro from an unidentified developer").

Click Open Anyway and confirm.

4. Open the app

Open Applications (or use Spotlight: Cmd+Space, type "Pommedoro") and double‑click Pommedoro.

That's it! For a normal person it's: download DMG → open DMG → drag to Applications → if blocked, use "Open Anyway" in Privacy & Security. No terminal or xattr needed.

Build from Source

For developers (macOS 13+, Swift 5.9+):

make bundle    # build app bundle
make install   # install to /Applications
make dmg       # build DMG
make run       # run directly

References & Documentation

The best timer is the one that gets you to take the break without fighting your focus—so the break actually happens and then disappears from your mind until the next cycle.