Free pomodoro timer shortcut built only with the genuine Apple Clock app

#Intro

The Pomodoro® Technique plays a pivotal role in enhancing our productivity in modern society and there has been a bunch of pomodoro timer apps available in app stores.

That said, it turned out that few of them were really my cup of tea. Some have very limited features for free tier users, whereas some have a lot of bells and whistles that I mightn't use. Given that, I embarked on creating it on my own with the Apple shortcut.

#Reader personas

• Want to use a useful pomodoro timer for free
• Interested in creating a pomodoro timer with the Apple shortcut without any help of third-party apps

#My proficiency level

As of the day when I'm writing this article, my proficiency level in this field is as follows:

• Have a three-year experience as a software engineer in total (Not in a row)
• Have a one-week experience in creating Apple shortcuts
• Have created five or so shortcuts

#Main

You can download the final product via the link below.

Pomodoro Timer

www.icloud.com

#The design concept

• Use genuine Apple apps only in combination with the shortcut
• Keep features to an absolute minimum
• Make it customizable by users by themselves

#How to use

To start the pomodoro timer, all you have to do are:

1. Tap or click the shortcut icon to run it(Put it on your home screen or somewhere in advance)
2. Set your working interval(25mins by default)
3. Set your breaking interval(5mins by default)

You'll see the timer counting down appear and now it's time to get your work started!

#The workflow

Behind the scenes, the pomodoro shortcut proceeds as follows: (You can skip this section if you're not interested in the mechanism)

Does the shortcut receives a parameter?

↪️Yes

• Retrieve the work & break time from the param by splitting it

↪️No

• Ask you how long you're working(in minutes)
• Ask you how long you're taking a break(in minutes)

Hereafter, it runs on the same process

• 𝕏 Set the work & break intervals to variables
• ✋Wait for a few seconds
• ⏰Open the timer tab of the Apple Clock app
• 📢Show a notification that lets you know the work interval's started
• 🔄multiply the work & break intervals by 60 to get them in seconds
• 𝕏 Set the work interval in seconds to a variable
• ✋Wait for the work intervals in seconds
• ⚠️Show an alert to check if you want to continue
  • If canceled, it gets out of the process here
• ⏰Open the timer tab of the Apple Clock app
• 📢Show a notification that lets you know the break interval's started
• 𝕏 Set the break interval in seconds to a variable
• ✋Wait for the break intervals in seconds
• ⚠️Show an alert to check if you want to continue
  • If canceled, it gets out of the process here
• 🔄Concatenate the work & break intervals in minutes as a string
• 𝕏 Set the concatenated string to a variable
• 🔛Pass it to this shortcut and call it in itself

This shortcut can take a parameter in text and then retrieves the work & break interval times separately from it if it exists, which enables the recursive structure.
If not, it asks you how long, which is supposed to be the case only the first time.

Another important point is, to the best of my knowledge, the Apple shortcut doesn't have a feature like the async/await from JavaScript. That's why I had to use the "Wait xxx" block instead of the await operator to make it align with the timer in terms of the timing, which is a bit of a workaround.

#Cautions

When you use this shortcut, make sure the following limitations:

• It's not fully synchronized with the Apple Clock app
  • Any actions beyond the scope of the workflow could cause a misalignment of them
    • e.g., Close the alert popup by tapping or clicking other areas on your screen than button menus
      • This stops the shortcut but not the Clock app
    • e.g., Tweak the timer directly in the Clock app
      • This affects the Clock app but not the shortcut

#Outro

After installing the shortcut, You can customize the default work & break intervals and other behaviors as you like.

Incidentally, I use it like these:

• It's callable by tapping the icon on the home screen of iPhone & iPad
• It's automatically called when the study mode is turned on.
  • triggered by the Automation functionality of the Apple shortcut

Pomodoro Timer

www.icloud.com