Focus
Short Break
Long Break
25:00
A free 15-minute timer, one tap to start. Fifteen minutes is a review length: long enough for a real recall pass over a topic or a deck of flashcards, short enough that it stays a review rather than a fresh study session. Use it to go back over what you have already learned, run through cards, or take a longer breather between work blocks.
A focused pass through a deck of due cards. Short, frequent review is exactly how spaced repetition is meant to work, and 15 minutes is enough to clear a real stack without it turning into a slog.
Pick one thing you have already studied and drill it until the timer rings. For learning genuinely new material, give yourself 20 minutes or more, the point where a block is long enough to settle into a fresh subject.
Close the book and try to remember it first. Fifteen minutes is the right size to write down everything you can recall, then check it against your notes and patch the gaps.
The lower end of a proper break between work blocks: long enough to step away, move, and reset before the next focused stretch.
Set 15 minutes so a quick rest stays a quick rest, not an accidental hour. A short, capped catnap to recover a little before getting back to it.
The reason 15 minutes is a review length and not a study one comes down to how memory fades. Most of what you learn slips away within a day unless you go back over it, and the fix is not to study for longer but to review at the right moments. Reviewing in short, frequent passes, timed to just before recall starts to drop, keeps recall high and, over a few rounds, lodges the material in long-term memory.[1]
Two things make a short block work better than a long one here. Recall is strongest at the very start and the very end of any block and sags in the middle[2], so several short passes capture more of those strong moments than one long sitting. And review compounds: each pass not only refreshes what you knew but makes the next thing you learn easier to absorb, because new material latches onto what is already firm.[1]
“One of the most significant aspects of proper review is the accumulative effect it has on all aspects of learning, thinking and remembering. The person who does not review is continually wasting the effort he does put in to any learning task.[1]
Below about 20 minutes, the mind does not have time to settle into the rhythm and organisation of something it has never seen before[1], so 15 is the wrong length for first-time learning. Keep it for going back over what you already know, and step up to the 20-minute timer when you are learning something new.
Pick one topic or one deck you have already studied. Review is for consolidating what you have met before, so choose something familiar, not a fresh chapter.
Try to recall before you look. Take a blank page and write down everything you can remember, or run the deck answer-first. The effort of remembering is what strengthens the memory, far more than re-reading does.
Check against your notes and patch the gaps. Mark what you missed, and spend the rest of the block on just those weak spots, not the things you already know cold.
Stop when it rings, and note when to review next. A quick line about when to come back, a day, then a week, keeps the spacing working in your favour.