A focus timer that counts how long your attention holds

How it works, · 1 of 5

Runs, not hours

Most timers count hours. Timer counts runs: the unbroken stretch from pressing Start focus to the moment your attention goes somewhere else. Your average run is the number to watch, because it is the one that grows with practice.

Hours reward being near a desk. On an ADHD day a fixed block can leak: attention leaves at minute 9, and the rest still looks like work on the clock. A run ends when you notice you have drifted, so that time stays out. A total grows with time spent. An average grows with attention held.

A 2013 review of 319 studies found that people with ADHD respond less steadily from moment to moment in short lab tasks. That isn’t day to day, but it may sound familiar: a length that’s easy on Tuesday can be hard on Thursday. Your runs show that shift. If they average 14 minutes, 15 is a realistic length to aim for.

The essay: Runs, not hours: why short honest runs beat long leaky ones.

How it works, · 2 of 5

Why the timer can count past zero

A fixed alarm doesn’t know you have only just got going. The 25 minutes in the best-known method came from one student’s system for his own work, and we couldn’t find a study that tested it with people who have ADHD. So what happens at zero is your choice, under Settings → Timer → How the clock runs.

• Stop at zero ends the run with a short chime: a full run. Going well near the end? +5 minutes adds five more.
• Overflow marks zero with a chime, then keeps counting in blue as one run: +04:12. When you are deep in something, the timer never pulls you out. The run goes on until you press I got distracted or End session.
• Stopwatch counts up from zero, with no length to pick.

Past zero, Overflow asks Still focused? every 15 minutes; a stopwatch asks every 30. Press Still going within 3 minutes to carry on. With no answer, Overflow ends the run at the last time you said you were still going, and a stopwatch where it asked, so a tab left open never counts time you weren’t there.

In the guide: your first session, and what happens when time’s up.

How it works, · 3 of 5

A distraction is a measurement, not a failure

Every mind wanders. In a 2010 study, a phone app checked in with 2,250 adults at random moments, and in 46.9% of them people were thinking about something other than what they were doing. Noticing comes a little after the drift begins. That is how attention works, not a flaw in you.

So the moment you notice, press I got distracted, or the Space or D key. The clock stops with a soft tick, never a buzzer. Nothing is lost: the stretch you held is logged as a run. Nothing counts again until you press Start focus, so there’s no rush to come back.

Marked honestly, a few weeks of runs show how long your focus usually lasts on each kind of work: a baseline you can plan with. A day with lots of distractions is a day you noticed a lot. Your record counts days, not streaks, so a missed day never wipes out what you did.

The essay: Distraction is a measurement, not a failure.

How it works, · 4 of 5

Guess, then see

Most people guess too short for their own tasks. In a 1994 study, students expected to finish their honours thesis in about 34 days, and it took about 55. Memory of past tasks tends to run short too. Some people with ADHD call this time blindness. Lab studies find judging time harder with ADHD on average, though how much that stretches task guesses hasn’t been well tested.

The fix doesn’t rely on willpower. It relies on a record. With Guess, then see on (signed in, in the full layout), naming a task offers a guess from 15 minutes to 2 hours. Work in as many runs as it needs, then press Done with this task. You see what the timer measured: You guessed 30m. It took 52m.

After three finished tasks, Your guesses shows your pattern, such as Lately your tasks take about 1.6× your guess, from the middle of your last 10. Over the weeks it becomes a planning number you can trust more than memory. Guesses are private.

The essay: Guess, then see: why tasks take longer than you think.

How it works, · 5 of 5

Quiet company, without the chat

Many people with ADHD say work is easier to start with someone nearby, each on their own thing. It’s often called body doubling. The research is thin: one survey and a few small studies. Older research found company speeds up simple tasks and slows hard ones, so it may suit the simple jobs you’ve been putting off.

The focus room, under Settings → What’s on screen, is off until you switch it on. Then, while a run is going, it counts you anonymously among the people focusing right now. No name and no account: your place is a random number that changes every run. Once 10 or more are at it, a line such as 23 people focusing right now shows under the clock.

Signed in, a group is up to eight people you invite. There is no chat, and nobody is ranked: each person is compared only with their own past weeks, and the headline is the group’s total.

The essay: Working alongside: body doubling without the pressure.

Who it is for

Made for ADHD, useful for anyone

Timer is built for ADHD first, and every choice in it leans that way: one obvious button, plain words and nothing that sounds disappointed in you. That also suits anyone who loses track of time, or who sits down to work and finds an hour has gone.

• Students use it for revision and exams: short honest runs, a subject for each one and a record of what actually got done.
• People who find time slippery watch it pass on the disc: a wedge that shrinks as the time runs down, so you see how much is left at a glance.
• Teachers and presenters put the visual timer on a projector: a disc any length from 1 minute to 2 hours, which records and sends nothing.

Breaks are timed too, with an alarm loud enough to hear from the next room. Under the timer, a to-do list adds up the time you spend on each task. Nothing on it turns red, and nothing is ever overdue.

Ways to use it

Start where you are

• The focus timer: no sign-up, start in one press.
• A 25-minute visual timer, or any length, full screen for a classroom or a meeting.
• The guide: a short version you can read in two minutes, then every part of the timer and why it works the way it does.
• Study and exams. Pulling what you know out of your head beats reading it again, and it fits in a 15-minute run.
• Classroom projector or stream. Put a shrinking disc on a classroom projector or a study stream, set up by one link.

Your data

Private by default

You do not need an account. Without one, your runs, settings and to-do list stay in your browser. A free account keeps them on every device, signed in with an emailed code or a passkey, never a password. A group sees how much each person focused, never your tasks, subjects or breaks, and you can export or delete everything whenever you like.

The site is free, and ads from Google are how it pays its way: when they are switched on, a few appear on the timer page, the guide, the essays, this page and the list of essays, never over the timer while it runs. The privacy page lists everything kept, for how long and who sees it.

Reading and looking

Set up the way you read

The timer is set in Atkinson Hyperlegible, drawn so that letters people confuse look different. You can change the text size and spacing, switch to the OpenDyslexic typeface and pick a theme: Paper, Cream, Slate or Dusk, each in light and dark, with stronger contrast if you want it. Three more, Glow, Garnet and Iris, open as you use the timer or when friends join. The guide and these pages follow the same settings, and Look and reading, at the top of each page here, changes the theme, light or dark, contrast, text size and OpenDyslexic, and the timer follows.