You finally get into the problem you have been circling all morning. Then a 25-minute timer rings and tells you to stop. Plenty of people never get back to where they were.
The Flowtime technique is a small change aimed at that moment.
How it works
- Pick one task before you start.
- Start a timer that counts up from 0:00.
- Work until your attention fades. Stop there and note the minutes.
- Rest. One common rule of thumb is about 20% of the work time: 25 minutes of work, 5 of rest; 50 and 10; 75 and 15.
That 20% is a starting point, not an established standard. A 2025 study used different numbers (5 minutes after up to 25 minutes of work, 8 after 25 to 50, and 10 after more than 50), and you can pick your own.
Is it better than Pomodoro?
The honest answer: nobody has shown that. The 2025 study compared 94 university students over a 2-hour online study session, split into self-regulated breaks, Pomodoro, and Flowtime. Productivity, task completion, flow, and average motivation and fatigue did not differ significantly between groups. The Pomodoro group’s motivation dropped sooner and its fatigue built up sooner than the self-regulated group’s, and by the 120-minute mark its fatigue was higher than the Flowtime group’s.
Treat that with care. The sample was small and unbalanced, 93% of participants were women and mostly psychology students, the measures were single self-report questions, and everyone chose their own task. The authors did not name a clear winner.
Why it can still be worth trying
Flow research, as summarised in secondary sources, points to clear goals, quick feedback, and a balance between challenge and skill. If a task is too easy you get bored; if it is too hard you get anxious. A fixed bell does not know which one you are in. Counting up at least lets you see how long you actually stay with a task, and stop when the dip arrives instead of when a clock says so.
A 3-day experiment
- Day 1 to 3: use count-up on one task per session. Write down the minutes and why you stopped.
- Day 4: try a fixed 25-minute timer on a similar task.
- Compare how you felt and how much you finished. Keep whichever works for your work.
You do not need an app for this. A stopwatch and a notebook are enough.
One line about the app
If you want the count-up and the break calculated for you, Flowmodoro does that, and classic Pomodoro is built in too. The link is in our profile.
Flowmodoro — 흐름이 끝날 때 쉬세요