A Pomodoro Timer That Locks You Out

There are tons of pomodoro timers out there, some simple, some complex, but in my experience they all have the same problem.

The alarm goes off and I think “huh” and keep working.

This is a bash script that uses i3lock-color or swaylock to completely lock your screen when the timer goes off and then keeps you out for the duration of the break, forcing you to step away from your work for a moment.

This is a super simple tool. It just schedules a time for the screen to lock, and then pops the lock screen back up immediately if you try to get in during the break. There is no timer indicating how much time is left. There are no provisions for not locking the screen in certain cases (like if you are watching a fullscreen video).

Usage

pomodoro [OPTIONS] <COMMAND>

Schedule the screen to lock for B minutes in T minutes from now

COMMANDS
  start    halt    check    install

OPTIONS
  -t|--time  MINUTES   minutes before break (default 35)
  -b|--break MINUTES   length of break (default 10)
  -R|--no-repeat       do not repeat the timer
  -n|--notify MINUTES  notify MINUTES before screen locks
  -h|--help            show this help

For example, to start a repeating 35 minute timer with a 10 minute break that notifies you 5 and 1 minutes before the screen locks, run:

pomdoro start -t 35 -b 10 -n 1 -n 5

Install

You will need the following dependencies installed

• systemd
• convert, part of the ImageMagick suite

If using i3:

• i3lock-color (minimum version 2.13.c.3, anything older you will need to change the options flags to their pre-standardized versions)
• maim screenshot tool (although this could easily be swapped out)

If using Sway:

• swaylock-effects
• grim screenshot tool

Then clone this repo and run ./pomodoro.sh install, which symlinks the necessary files to appropriate locations. (Using symlinks makes it easier to change behavior without chasing all over the file system.)

pomodoro install has an optional --with-boot that adds a systemd user service to run the timer on startup.

Messages

The lock screen displays a message chosen a random from a file messages.txt, which is stored in the app’s config directory (by default, $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/pomodoro or $HOME/.config/pomodoro). The format is ~”${break_minutes} minute break; time to ${message}”~, where message is a randomly chosen line from messages.txt.