Press and hold the glass for two and a half seconds to wind it up. Let go and twenty five minutes begin. At the end you see what happened and take a break.
The timer and your days are free. Plus is $1.99 a month or $19 a year for the rest of Insights and the whole milestone ladder. It fits in a narrow window beside your work.
Try it here. Press and hold the glass to wind it up.
Press and hold the glass to wind it up. Let go at the stop, and twenty five minutes begin.
This one runs in your browser. The real timer app is free.
What is different
If you put things off, the hardest moment is the one before you begin. So beginning is the one thing here that asks something of you. You press the glass and hold it for two and a half seconds, and letting go starts the session. A single click leaves the glass where it is.
Are you an Untimer?
Many people with ADHD describe a weak sense of time passing. An hour goes by and some inner clock stays quiet about it. Research has measured real differences in how they perceive time. Plenty of people without a diagnosis know the feeling too. The phone takes an hour, the tab takes an hour, and the day is gone.
Some Untimers have a diagnosis and most do not. Untimer leaves the word for you to claim. If this sounds like you, take it.
More about UntimersHow a session goes
At rest the glass has run out. Press and hold it and the sand rises back up against a spring that clicks as it goes. Hold for two and a half seconds. Let go at the stop and the session starts.
Every session runs twenty five minutes. The sand in the upper chamber is peach, which is the colour Untimer uses for the time still ahead of you. It falls thick and slow into the lower chamber and turns sage green there, which is the colour for the time you have spent. Bubbles rise out of the neck as it goes.
If something pulls you away, one tap records it and one line says what it was. The box at the top of the timer hands that line back when you return.
When the sand runs out, the box under the heading says what happened and the screen stays where it is. A small figure beside the time says where you are in the set. If you stop the session early, the box stays quiet and the session sits on your record without adding to the day.
The glass gives way to a calm scene to look at. You start the break when you are ready or go straight back to focusing. After four sessions you get a long break.
Why each part is there
A lot of that research is about people with ADHD, people who cannot stop scrolling, and people who put things off. Here is what each part does, and why it is there.
You press and hold the glass for two and a half seconds and let go. That winds it up and starts the session.
Why. A mechanical timer has to be wound up, and that small act gives it weight. Untimer builds the same act into a digital timer, so starting becomes something you do on purpose instead of something you click while you are still deciding. Two and a half seconds is long enough to notice that you have begun.
Every session runs the same twenty five minutes, and that length is fixed.
Why. Research on fixed focus and break schedules found that people got the same amount done with or without a fixed schedule, and that they felt more concentrated and less tired with one (Biwer and colleagues, 2023). The exact number mattered little. So Untimer keeps one number and takes that decision off your plate.
The sand moves, the tab counts down, and today is drawn as a day with your sessions on it.
Why. Many people with ADHD describe a weak sense of time passing, and research has measured real differences in how they perceive time. That is what an external timer is for. In one study a visible countdown left children less anxious about the time ahead and kept them on task longer. It helped most with the children who had the most trouble paying attention.
One tap records an interruption, and one line records what it was.
Why. Part of your attention stays on a task you left unfinished (Leroy, 2009). Writing a short plan for where you stopped reduced that, and people did better on the next task (Leroy and Glomb, 2018). Untimer asks for that line at the moment you leave, and the box at the top of the timer hands it back when you return.
The glass gives way to a calm scene in the same place, and the break waits for you to start it.
Why. Breaks help people feel less tired, and longer breaks help more after hard work. The worst break is a phone break. In a study of several hundred people, a break spent on the phone left them as drained as taking no break at all (Kang and Kurtzberg, 2019). Untimer gives you something quiet to rest your eyes on instead.
Every session keeps how long you planned and how long you worked. It also keeps how the session ended and the task it went to.
Why. Keeping track of what you do is one of the most effective habit techniques there is, and it works best when you can see the record and look back at what you intended (Michie and colleagues, 2009). Untimer records every session, shows it to you, and keeps it.
Untimer shows how many of the last forty five days you came back, and it draws a missed day like any other day.
Why. Habits take anywhere from a few weeks to most of a year to form, and missing a single day makes little difference (Lally and colleagues, 2010). A counter that resets to zero would punish you for something that barely matters.
Milestones are ladders with levels. There are four of them: time recorded, coming back, how you work and craft.
Why. A goal that is months away pulls weakly, and studies of ADHD suggest that pull is weaker still. That is part of why someone who struggles to start a report can play a game for hours: the game tells you how you are doing every few seconds. Milestones give you something close at hand. They tell you what you did, and what you reach stays yours for good. Rewards that pay you for an activity wear down your own interest in it (Deci, Koestner and Ryan, 1999). Plain information about your own work leaves that interest alone.
You can set a time your working day ends, and it is marked on the day.
Why. Stopping is as hard as starting for a lot of Untimers. Once the work has you, it keeps you. A set end to the day gives you a line to stop at, drawn where you can see it all day.
You can make a task with a name and a guess at how many sessions it will take, and your sessions register against it. Using a task is your choice.
Why. A specific plan for what you will do helps people start (Gollwitzer and Sheeran, 2006). A required task field stops people starting at all. In the founder’s own record of thousands of sessions, almost none carried a task. So Untimer asks once and lets you get on with it. When you finish a task, it keeps what it took against what you said.
Untimer keeps the timer, your tasks and your record, and it leaves the calendar and the settings screen out.
Why. Every choice placed between you and starting is a place to stall. Untimer holds the time for you and keeps your record. It stays out of the way of everything else, and it leaves the rest to the tools you already use.
Your session stays put
The timer lives on the server. It stores the moment your session ends, and every screen just shows how far away that moment is.
So a refresh leaves the session where it was, a crashed tab leaves it where it was, and a laptop that went to sleep wakes up with the right time. Your phone and your computer show the same session, because there is only ever one.
When the session ends, a soft bell rings at the exact second, with the tab in the background too. A page that was reloaded mid session and left untouched stays silent, because a browser sounds only once you have touched the page. For that one moment Untimer can show a system notice instead, once you have allowed it from Settings.
How it is builtThe day
At the bottom of the Timer and at the top of every day in Insights, today is drawn as a band that runs from midnight to midnight. The night sits at both ends in slate grey. The morning rises through peach, the working day holds a pale sage green, and the evening goes back down through sage. A small sun marks the hour you are in right now.
It is the picture the founder looks at most. It shows where the day has gone and how much of it is left, and it does that without a single number. The phone draws the same picture.
Your records
Each session keeps how long you planned and how long you worked. It also keeps how the session ended, the interruptions you noticed and the task it went to.
Your days
Free
One small hourglass is one session that ran its length, and it is the same mark everywhere a session is drawn. Open a day and it is drawn as a day, with every session under it. Your days are free, and every session is kept.
Coming back
Free
This is how often you came back. The days you missed are drawn like the days you did.
The year
Plus
One dot stands for one day, shaded by how many sessions ran. A quiet week reads as a quiet week.
Milestones
Milestones are ladders with levels. There are four groups: time recorded, coming back, how you work and craft. Each ladder shows the level you reached and what comes next. Some marks appear once you have earned them, and you keep every one of them.
Every milestone you reach is yours whether or not you have Plus. Plus shows the rungs still ahead of you. More about Plus, and why the ladder is built this way.
Beside your work
Every screen works down to 380 pixels wide, with the navigation along the bottom. Untimer stands at the edge of your screen like a timer on a desk, beside the work it is timing.
It is simple on purpose. Untimer leaves out the calendar and the settings screen that swallow an afternoon, so what is left is what matters: your tasks and your time. You wind the glass up, you work, and the timer keeps the time at the edge of the screen.
Price
The timer is free, and so are your days. Plus adds the rest of Insights and the whole milestone ladder.
Free
$0
Plus
The rest of both$1.99 a month
or $19 a year, paid once
Android
It runs on the same account as the web app, so the session you start at your desk is the one on your phone, and the one you start on your phone carries on at the desk. That makes the phone the timer for the work that is not at a computer: cleaning a room, sorting out the garage, anything that needs twenty five minutes of the same kind of attention.
Wind it up, put the phone in your pocket, and the notification tells you when the sand has run out. The countdown sits on the lock screen and in the status bar, drawn by the system itself. An alarm sounds at the end whether the phone is asleep or awake. Stop the session at your desk and the phone checks first, then stays quiet.
It goes on Google Play when it is ready. Until then, the web app works in a phone browser.
Articles
Untimer cuts a working day into pieces of twenty five minutes that are all the same size. Here is what changes when you count your day in pieces instead of guessing at it in hours.
Read it5 minute readMost of what gets called procrastination is a starting problem. Untimer makes the start small, deliberate and cheap to walk away from, and here is why each of those matters.
Read it6 minute readRefresh the page and most browser timers forget you. Untimer holds on, because a session is one moment written on a server and every screen shows how far away that moment is.
Read itQuestions
You can register for free and use the timer, and it keeps your days. Free also shows how often you come back, and every milestone you reach stays yours. Plus is $1.99 a month or $19 a year, and it adds the rest of Insights and the whole milestone ladder. Untimer carries no ads and runs no trackers, and you can download everything you recorded as one file at any time.
Eight more readings in Insights. They cover what your time went to and the hours and weekdays you focus most. They also carry your record so far, and your best day, week and month. They also show when your days usually begin and end, what pulled at you, and a year of your days in one drawing. Plus adds the whole milestone ladder too, with how far along each rung you are. Everything you record is free either way.
No. A session runs twenty five minutes, a break runs five and a long break runs twenty five. A set holds four sessions, and all four lengths are fixed. End the break stops a break early whenever you have had enough, and the one thing you set is when your working day ends.
Winding is how you begin. You hold the glass for two and a half seconds and let go, and that small effort is the point. If you use switch access, voice control or a screen reader, there is an action that winds the glass for you.
It says one thing at a time. What just happened comes first, while it lasts. Then where you left off, if you wrote a line at an interruption and have yet to read it back. After those come a tip about the timer, a line worth reading and a fact about your own day, dealt in turn. The arrow shows the next one, and the cross puts away what can be put away.
Untimer is a timer. Many Untimers have trouble feeling time pass, starting or stopping, with or without a diagnosis. Untimer is designed with that in mind, and it does not diagnose or treat anything.
In a database in Ireland, and only your account can read it. Untimer stores your sessions, your notes, your tasks and your marks, and it leaves your behaviour alone. From Settings you can download everything as one file, or delete your account and everything in it. This site and the app carry no analytics scripts.
Android is coming, and it is built. Until it is on Google Play the web app works in a phone browser, and you can add it to your home screen.
An email and a password. Plus is $1.99 a month or $19 a year when you want it.
