Pomodoro Technique

The default for good reason: work for 25 minutes, take a 5-minute break, repeat. Francesco Cirillo built it as a college student around a kitchen timer shaped like a tomato, which is where the name comes from. It suits tired evenings because 25 minutes is short enough to agree to even when you feel drained, and the regular breaks stop the second hour from collapsing. Its weakness is the hard stop: just as a dense chapter starts to click, the timer goes off. If your concentration holds, stretching it to 50 minutes on and 10 off keeps the same structure with fewer interruptions. Any phone or kitchen timer works, so there is nothing to buy or set up.