Set a custom countdown timer for any duration.
Set a duration, press start, and focus on the work. The timer runs in the background tab and plays an audio alert when it finishes. No installation, no account, no interruptions.
Pasta: 8–11 min. Boiled eggs: 6 min soft, 10 min hard. Chicken breast at 180°C: 25–30 min. Set the timer when you put it in — not when you remember to.
25 minutes of focused work, 5-minute break. After 4 rounds, a 15–30 minute break. The timer enforces the structure — without it, "just 5 more minutes" expands indefinitely.
Set the timer to your allotted slot minus 2 minutes buffer. Glance at it rather than your phone. The audio alert at the end prevents the most common presentation failure: running over.
HIIT: 40 seconds on, 20 seconds rest. Planks: 30–60 seconds. Rest between sets: 90 seconds. Set the timer at the start of each interval rather than watching a stopwatch.
Divide total time by number of questions to set a per-question budget. Set a halfway check-in timer. The alert forces you to move on rather than over-investing in one question.
A visible countdown on a shared screen keeps standups to 15 minutes and retrospectives on schedule. The alert is a neutral way to signal time is up without anyone having to interrupt.
Parkinson's Law: work expands to fill the time available. A task with no deadline takes longer than one with a tight constraint — and the constrained version is often better because you make decisions instead of refining indefinitely. The timer creates a container. What you produce inside it is up to you; the boundary is not negotiable.
The Pomodoro technique specifically uses 25-minute intervals because that duration is short enough to commit to fully ("I can do anything for 25 minutes") but long enough to reach a state of focus. The breaks are mandatory — they prevent the compounding fatigue that makes the 4th hour of work half as productive as the 1st.
No data sent anywhere. Works offline once the page loads. The tab can be minimised — the audio alert will still fire.
Yes. The timer uses JavaScript's setTimeout which continues running when the tab is in the background. The audio alert will play when the countdown reaches zero regardless of which tab is active. Keep your browser volume on.
Yes. Click the Pause button to freeze the countdown at the current time. Click Resume (or Start) to continue from where you paused. This makes it more flexible than physical kitchen timers for handling interruptions.
A time management method developed by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s. Work for 25 minutes (one Pomodoro), then take a 5-minute break. After 4 Pomodoros, take a longer 15–30 minute break. The structure improves focus and prevents burnout during long work sessions.
JavaScript timers can drift by a few milliseconds per interval due to browser throttling, especially in background tabs. For precise timing over hours, the drift is negligible. For laboratory-grade precision, use a dedicated hardware timer.
For counting up from zero, use the dedicated Stopwatch tool instead. The countdown timer counts down to zero and alerts you; the stopwatch counts up from zero and measures elapsed time.