Work timer

How to use the online timer

The working day is not short of hours. It is short of hours that belong to one thing, since between messages, meetings and the small tasks that fill any gap, a great deal of it is spent switching rather than working. A timed block imposes what a to-do list cannot: a start, an end, and a signal that a break has run its course rather than quietly expanded into the afternoon.

These pages cover deep work blocks long enough to reach the interesting part of a hard problem, office hours built to survive an interrupted day, meeting lengths worth questioning rather than accepting from the calendar's default, short breaks that actually rest the eyes, and a lunch break spent somewhere other than the desk. The two ends matter equally, since the day falls apart as easily from breaks that never end as from work that never stops.

Put the demanding block where your attention actually is, which for most people is the morning rather than the stretch after lunch, and leave the administrative work for the flatter part of the day. Then stop at the end rather than sliding into the next hour by momentum.