In this guide, we will talk about how to effectively use Session and show you features that make Session the best Focus Timer on the market.

What is Pomodoro Technique?

The Pomodoro technique is a simple but powerful way to help you stay focused. The technique is straightforward—you commit to 25 minutes of focus, followed by a 5-minute break. Repeat this cycle 4 times, then you take a long break.

The general flow is as follows:

• 25 minutes: Focus
• 5 minutes: Break
• 25 minutes: Focus
• 5 minutes: Break
• 25 minutes: Focus
• 5 minutes: Break
• 25 minutes: Focus
• 20 minutes: Long Break

…and the cycle is repeated from the beginning.

Because the flow is predictable. You know exactly when to focus, when to take a break, and how long it will take. This helps with procrastination, as there's a clear structure when you can stop working.

The first 25 minutes are the most important phase. If you successfully follow this, the rest will come naturally when you're already in the flow.

The issue with Pomodoro Technique

While the technique is simple, it's not perfect. The pure Pomodoro Technique is rigid. It forces you to stay focused for 25 minutes and then take a break for 5 minutes. This can be problematic for some reasons:

• What if you're in the "flow"? What if you want to work longer than 25 minutes?
• Most Pomodoro-based apps on the market follow this rigid structure. Your progress is not saved unless you work for at least 25 minutes.
• What if 25 minutes is too long or too short for the person?
• The same issue applies to the break duration.

Why Session is The Best Tool to Stay Focused

Session is built with Pomodoro Technique in mind, without the rigid structure. Here's how Session addresses the concerns mentioned above:

• When the Session timer ends, it enters an overflow phase. In this phase, you can take a break or continue working.
• If you focus less than 25 minutes, Session will still save your progress.
• You can customize session duration, short break duration, and long break duration.

How to use Session

Set duration

You can adjust Session duration or break duration by rotating the timer hand. Rotating clockwise will start a Session, and counter-clockwise will start a break.

Then, you can tap "Start Session" or "Start Break".

1. Set intention

Start your Session with a clear intention. This helps you focus on one thing only. The intention is shown everywhere: widget, live activities, notifications, app and website blockers—ensuring you always know what you're working on.

Session also provides a list of suggestions from past Sessions that you've completed.

2. Breathe

Start every Session with a breath to calm your mind. It'll help you re-evaluate the intention before actually committing to the Session.

3. Start Focus

This is the most important phase. Pomodoro Technique gives a clear expectation when to focus and when to take a break. You know exactly that you only "need" to focus for 25 minutes.

While in Session, you can block distracting apps and websites to keep you stay focused.

4. Write notes

Write what you have learned in your notes. The notes are displayed contextually on the right pane to give you context on what you have done or learned.

5. Auditory Reminders

Not just visually, Session also reminds you on what Session phase you're on with sound:

• Session utilizes different background sound depending on your session phase (session, overflow, break, break overflow) so you know exactly "where you are" without even having the app open.
• This background sound is perfect while working from home: you play the background sound at home. Your family members and kids know exactly when they can reach you based on the background sound. This workflow is used by many existing Session users.
• Session presence: it reminds you every 10 minutes (configurable) with a gentle, unintrusive sound while working on Session. In case you're distracted, this sound helps you return to work. Instead of "wasting" the whole Session, you waste only 10 minutes.
• Lastly, Session notifies you 2 minutes (configurable) before the Session ends. This helps you to get ready to take a break and wrap up the current Session.

6. Session Ended

When the timer ends, Session's background color will change to your category color. It visually indicates that the Session is over. Other than that, the background sound audibly lets you know that the timer has ended.

You can take a break by pressing the coffee icon.

7. Take a Break

Now it's time to take a break. You can block your working apps here so you can take a break without overworking.

Stand up, stretch, walk around, and hydrate.

Break also has a distinctive "Break End" phase with darker background color and background sound to notify you visually and audibly.

If you're working on Mac, you can leave your workspace. Bring your phone & Apple Watch. Session will notify via live activity and push notifications when the it's the time to get back to work.

8. Start Focus Again or Stop Working

Now that your break is over, it's time to start focusing again.

Repeat until work is done.

You can finish your Session by pressing the stop (square) icon and choosing "Finish Session".

Other Notable Feature

Session has a suite of notable features to help you stay focused.

Categorization

You can categorize your Sessions into various categories. You can analyze them later on and filter your session by category.

Calendar Integration

See your calendar side by side with the Sessions you’ve completed. Schedule your daily tasks here.

You can start a new Session by clicking your calendar and choosing “Start Session.”

Analytics

You can see your past Sessions at daily, weekly, and monthly intervals. You can also filter the analytics based on category, focus state, and only Sessions with notes.

App & Website Blocker

You can block apps and websites to help you stay focused. This feature is available on both macOS and iOS.

Slack Blocker

If you use Slack, you can use Session’s Slack blocker to stop Slack notifications from distracting you while you’re trying to focus.

Session Automation

Session Automation gives you the ability to automate your Session.

The best use case here is Apple Focus integration; you can block specific app notifications and messages and calls from individual contacts when Session starts.

Other than that you can:

• Change the bulb color in front of your home office to different color based on tje Session phase,
• Customize Spotify/Apple Music playlist based on the Category,
• Save Sessions to Google/Outlook Calendar with Apple Shortcut,

…and many more!

Keyboard Shortcut

Session also has list of keyboard shortcuts to help you quickly start a Session, stop Session, take a break, and many more.

You can find the list of keyboard shortcuts inside Session app.

Highly Configurable

Session is highly configurable. You can customize Session to fit your own workflow. Most of these settings are configurable on the settings page.

Sync Between Devices

Session timer also syncs across all your Apple devices. You can start the timer from Mac, continue it on your iOS device. And push notifications are also sent to all devices.

Building Habit to Use Session

You can build a habit to use Session by setting a daily reminder and contextual window tracker.

Set daily reminder

Set daily reminder to start a Session. You can configure it here.

Set window tracker

Session can show you notifications to start Session based on keywords displayed in your window. You can configure it here.

Ways to start Session

Calendar interface

You can start a Session from the Calendar interface by clicking on the Calendar event and choosing "Start Session".

Apple Shortcuts

You can start Session from Apple Shortcuts. More details can be found here.

Here is a quick link to go to Apple Shortcuts settings.

URL Scheme

You can start a Session with a URL Scheme.

Some users optimize this by creating a formula in spreadsheet-based app (like Excel/Notion) to convert their to-do lists to a clickable URL with URL Scheme.

Siri & Homepod

You can start the Session timer via Siri or Homepod with these phrases:

• Start recent Session
• Start last Session
• Start recent focus Session
• Start last focus Session
• Start focus Session
• Start category on Session
• Stop working on Session
• Stop Session
• Finish Session
• Toggle pause on Session
• Pause on Session
• Break on Session
• Take a break on Session
• Abandon Session
• Abandon on Session
• Set intention on Session
• Set current intention on Session
• Change intention on Session
• Update Session intention
• What's current Session?
• Current active Session
• Current status of Session
• What's Session status
• What's Session current status
• Start category category on Session

Siri is already localized to languages like Spanish, German, Russian by Session users.

You can help to add translation to your local language, here.

Widget

Session widget helps you see your timer phase and analytics on your main screen.

• You can add the widget on iOS by following Apple's guide here.
• You can add the widget on macOS by following Apple's guide here.

Live activities

Starting a Session automatically starts a Live Activity. You can start Session on your macOS device, and it'll automatically start a Live Activity on all of your iOS devices.

Live Activity is also supported on watchOS 11—making it easy to control Session timer from Apple Watch.

Push notifications

Session sends push notifications to all of your devices. You can control your timer directly on the notification.

If you don't want Session to send push notifications, you can turn it off per device here.