Thomas – A Simple Pomodoro Timer App for Linux

One of the best methods you can implement to be more productive is time management. It allows you to keep track of how much time it takes you to get work done and how often you exceed your deadlines.

Timer apps these days seem to have chosen a favorite technique to help users stay sharp and productive as is evident in apps like Gnome Pomodoro and Take a Break. The Pomodoro technique is a common pick.

The Pomodoro technique was developed towards the end of the 1980s by Francesco Cirillo and it works by breaking down tasks into assigned time intervals (typically 25 minutes in length) separated by short breaks.

At the core, all timer apps that use this method are the same but they go about it differently, and that’s why I introduce Thomas to you today.

Thomas is a simple, modern, electron-based and cross-platform productivity app that implements the Pomodoro method.

When you launch Thomas you will be welcomed by a small clutter-less User Interface displaying a timer, the typical window control buttons (close, minimize, and maximize), a play button (which starts the timer), and a menu icon.

Features in Thomas

• Freeware: Thomas is free for everyone to download and use.
• Support for keyboard shortcuts

Thomas’ shortcuts so far are:

• Cmd Or Control+Alt+T — show application
• Escape — hide application
• Cmd Or Control+Enter — start/cancel timer

There is neither an online documentation nor manual, but hey, you just might not need one. Try Thomas out yourself to see if it satisfies your needs.

As at the time of writing, Thomas doesn’t have an installer, but being an electron app getting it up and running on your PC shouldn’t be a problem. Enter the following commands into your terminal:

$ git clone https://github.com/andrepolischuk/thomas
$ cd thomas
$ npm install

You might need to install nodejs-legacy (to create a node symlink) if you run Ubuntu or Debian just to be on the safe side.

$ sudo apt-get install nodejs-legacy

Are there any other productivity apps you know about? Drop your comments and suggestions in the discussion section below.