How to use Untimer
A session from the first hold to the break, and the 4 screens around it. This guide covers each control and what it does.
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How Untimer handles interruptions
An interruption does not end a session in Untimer. You press Interruption and write one line about it. The line comes back under Where you left off. A study by Leroy and Glomb is behind it.
A message can interrupt a session. So can a colleague or a sudden thought. In Untimer an interruption does not end the session. You note it and the session keeps running.
What you enter
While a session runs there is a button called Interruption. It opens a small sheet called Noticing an interruption. The sheet asks 2 questions. Was it something in your head or something around you? What was it, so you can pick it up later?
Choose Something in my head for a thought or an urge. Choose Something around me for a person or a phone. Write a line under What was it, or leave it empty. Press Note it to save or Skip to close the sheet. You are back in the session within 5 seconds. The session runs the whole time.
After you save, the button reads Interruption (1). The number goes up with each interruption you note.
Where you left off
What you write comes back later. The message box on the Timer screen sits under the greeting. It shows your last line under the heading Where you left off. The line comes ahead of the box’s tips and facts. It is there when you open Untimer again.
A line from an earlier day carries the day in its heading. A line from yesterday reads Where you left off, yesterday. An older one reads Where you left off, on Tue 12 Aug. A line from today carries no date, because you were there.
The note stays in the box until you put it away. A note from last week is still true. A cutoff would drop it on the morning you need it most. So the box keeps it and names the day. Putting it away on one device removes it from your other devices. The next line you write replaces it.
This is the part of Untimer with the clearest study behind it.
Attention residue
In 2009 Sophie Leroy described something you know if you have been interrupted. When you switch tasks, part of your attention stays on the first one. It stays longer when the first task was left unfinished. She called it attention residue. It shows up as worse work on the second task while your mind keeps going back to the first.
In 2018 Leroy and Glomb tested a remedy in 4 studies. Before switching, people wrote a short plan for the interrupted task. The plan said where they were and what they would do next. It also said what stood in the way. The authors called it a ready to resume plan. People who wrote one carried less residue into the next task. They also did better on it. A short plan worked as well as a long one, as long as it was written down.
The interruption sheet is that plan in its shortest form. You write one line at the moment you leave. When you return, Untimer shows you that line. It is your plan for picking the work back up.
Inside and outside
The sheet asks where the interruption came from. Something around you is the phone, the door or a person. Something in your head is the urge to check one thing. It can be a thought about dinner or a better idea for another project. Untimer calls both an interruption. The word distraction is a judgement about you. An interruption is an event. You noticed it, and the record keeps the count and the kind.
What the record keeps
Interruptions do not count against a session. In Insights the days list shows how many interruptions you noted in each session. With Plus the Interruptions panel counts them by month over the last year. It splits them into inside and outside. The Left a note milestone appears the first time you write a line at an interruption. A later milestone marks 50 interruptions written down.
A session ends when you end it or when the sand runs out. Its outcome is whichever of those happened. An interrupted session that ran its length counts in full.
Why it is small
We could have built a journal or a list of open loops. We could have built a review screen. We considered all 3 and kept the line. The study gives the reason. The plan works because it is brief and written at the moment you leave. A journal is something you do instead of working. A line is something you do on the way back to work.
The sheet has 2 questions and the return shows one line. The whole exchange takes a few seconds.
