The full terms are what apply.
Install the timer: its own icon, out of your tabs.
A free focus timer. Lost focus? Press I got distracted. No sign-up needed.
Stopwatch: counts up. Change it in Settings
Focus sounds: background noise some people find helps them focus.
Focus sounds are off.
Opened inside an app’s browser? Your runs stay in this built-in browser. Open the timer in your own browser, or make a free account, to keep them.
Your runs stay in this browser. A free account keeps them on all your devices.
No sessions logged yet.
Grouped from what you typed when starting. Add #atag or a
course code like COMP3300 to group sessions together.
Only you can see this — your group sees totals, never what you were doing.
Focus and rest across the window, so you can see the shape of a day rather than one number for it. Only you can see this — your group sees focus totals and never your breaks.
Everything you have put in across the window, adding up. The line only climbs, so a quiet day flattens it rather than breaking anything. Hover or tab along it for any day’s running total. Only you can see this.
How your numbers spread out over these days. Each bar counts how many fall in that range; the curve is their smoothed shape, and the dashed line the average. Tall and narrow means steady, low and wide means it varies a lot. Hover or arrow along the bars for counts. Only you can see this.
| Day | Runs | Avg | Longest | Resets | Focused | Consistency |
|---|
You came from a friend’s invite link. Everything here works without an account. If you make one, your friend will see your handle, and it counts as their invite once you’ve done 2 runs, 30 minutes in all.
You scanned a card to get here. Everything here works without an account. If you make one, the person whose card it is will see your handle, and it counts as their invite once you’ve done 2 runs, 30 minutes in all.
The focus timer, at the length you used last, or 30 minutes on a first visit. Change it with the chips under the clock, from 15m to 60m, or type your own under Custom.
With a free account, pick a subject under Subject before you start, and + new adds one. Each subject then shows its own time, its runs and its average run. Over a term you can see which subjects get your best focus.
Revision tends to stick better spread over several days than crammed into one night. The essay Spread it out has the research behind that. Put each review on the to-do list with a date, so you can see what is due.
Save the last few minutes of a run for recall. Shut the book, write down what you remember, then check it. Close the book first explains why it works.
In the weeks before exams, glance at the chart under the timer now and then. It shows your average run for each day, so you can choose lengths that fit the focus you have this week. On a day with several subjects, take a break between each one so every subject starts fresh.
Timed practice for an exam goes on the 1 hour timer. The Pomodoro timer runs 25 minute focuses with breaks between, and the full list has the rest.
A focus timer that measures one thing: how long you can hold your attention before something breaks it. Here is what each part does, in about five minutes. The guide has the rest, with the reasons behind each choice.
Most timers count hours, which rewards being near a desk. This one counts runs: the unbroken stretch between pressing Start focus and your attention going somewhere else. Four honest 20-minute runs say more than an afternoon with a tab open. Your average run, shown on the chart each day, is the number to watch, because it is the one that grows with practice.
You use it in three moves. Pick a length under the clock: 15, 25, 30, 45 or 60 minutes, or Custom. Press Start focus. Then press one button the moment your focus breaks. Not sure where to start? 25 minutes is fine, and a short run you finish beats a long one you don’t.
Beside the clock, a disc shows the time left as a wedge that shrinks towards zero at the top. It is grey while you choose a length, blue while you focus and orange on a break. Digits say how long; the wedge shows how much, at a glance, which helps when time feels slippery. The face is fixed at 60 minutes, so 25 minutes is always the same size of wedge; longer runs use a 120-minute face, and over two hours the disc stays full until two hours are left. With Stopwatch it fills instead, clockwise, once an hour.
While a run is going, the timer takes the whole screen and everything else waits one scroll away. Switching to your notes or another tab is fine, and so is letting your phone’s screen turn off: the clock keeps counting.
Closing the page does not stop a run either. Open the timer again and it picks up where it is. If the page stays closed, or the screen stays off, a stopwatch stops when it would next have asked if you are still there.
The moment your attention goes, to a message, a coffee or a rabbit hole, press I got distracted, or the Space or D key. The clock stops and that stretch is logged. Nothing counts again until you press Start focus, so the minutes spent making a coffee are never counted as focus.
A distraction is a measurement, not a failure. It is what the timer is here to measure: how long your focus lasts before something breaks it. That is why its sound is a soft tick, never a buzzer. With an account, after three short stretches in a row, the timer offers a shorter length, because the target is wrong, not you.
At zero the run ends with a short chime: a full run, added to your record. If it is going well near the end, press +5 minutes to add five more to this run, so a good stretch is not cut short. Or choose Overflow in Settings → Timer → How the clock runs: the clock keeps going past zero as one run, so you are not pulled out when you are deep in something, and it asks every 15 minutes if you are still there. Or choose Stopwatch there: no length at all, the clock counts up from zero until you stop it, and asks every 30 minutes if you are still there. End session stops the clock early and keeps what you did. Stretches under five seconds are not recorded, so a press by mistake leaves no trace. You needn’t choose before you start: the first time a run reaches zero, the timer asks which way you would like.
In the full layout, the record under the timer shows one bar for each day. Its height is that day’s average run, and its colour is how even your runs were: darker is more even. An orange tick marks your longest run, and a dotted line shows the total you focused. A smaller week shows in grey, never red. To see the timer alone, choose Settings → What’s on screen → Layout → Simple.
With the clock stopped, press 5m, 10m or 15m beside Break. The disc turns orange and counts the break down, and nothing counts as focus. When it ends, an alarm plays in four short bursts, loud enough to hear from the next room, so you can leave the desk. Any key stops it. Back sooner? Press I’m back. Breaks are kept apart from focus and never added to it.
In the full layout, a to-do list sits under the timer. Type a task and press Enter: a name is all it needs. Put two or three things in My Day, which starts empty each day, tap one above Start focus, and the time you spend adds up on it. While a run is going you see only that task and its next step. Nothing turns red and nothing is ever overdue, and Let it go closes a task you have decided not to do.
Shortcuts do nothing while you are typing in a box. If one gets pressed by mistake, turn them off under Settings → Timer → Keyboard shortcuts; every button still works.
No sign-up needed: without an account your runs stay in this browser, and a free account keeps them on every device. Create a free account, under Start focus, makes one, and the runs from this browser come along. Opened from a link inside an app, such as Reddit, the timer runs in that app’s own browser, which keeps its runs apart from your usual browser. The privacy page lists everything kept, and for how long. An account follows the Terms of use: plain rules, with a short version at the top.
Ideas or problems? Tell us.
Send feedbackStop at zero: counts down. A chime ends the run.Overflow: keeps going past zero as one run, so a good stretch isn’t cut in two. It asks every 15 minutes if you’re still there.Stopwatch: counts up from zero until you stop, with no length to pick. It asks every 30 minutes if you’re still there.
Space starts a run or logs a distraction, D logs a distraction, N adds a task.
Something to aim for today: focus time, runs or both, met when each is reached. The timer says when you get there, and nothing when you don’t. A new day starts fresh.
For the week, Monday to Sunday: focus time, runs or days you focused, on their own or together.
Every sound the timer makes, including the break alarm. The same switch as the speaker at the top.
One that stays while a run or break is going, with when it ends (for a stopwatch, when it started), and +5 min until zero.
Background noise some people find helps them focus, made in your browser as it plays. No sound files are downloaded. Signed in, the sound, volume and when they play follow your account.
Focus sounds are off.
Picking one plays a short sample, or changes the sound that’s playing.
Lowered while a chime or the break alarm plays, so you always hear those.
During focus runs only, they fade in as you start focus here and out as the run ends, and stay quiet through breaks.
Reminders aren’t available yet.
On a computer, reminders come while your browser is open, even with no timer tab.
The page’s colours, nothing else. Each one has a light and a dark look.
Three more: two open as you use the timer, one when friends join. Once a theme is open, it stays yours.
The wheel at the top steps through the themes ticked here. New themes join it when they open.
The theme you pick and the themes in the wheel show on every device you sign in to. Off keeps this browser’s own.
More makes text stronger and edges and the focus ring thicker, in any theme.
Weighted letters some people find easier. The spacing settings below have stronger evidence.
Text size and spacing change this page and the guide.
Set in Atkinson Hyperlegible Next and Mono, drawn for the Braille Institute (licence). OpenDyslexic by Abbie Gonzalez (licence). All under the SIL Open Font License 1.1.
Simple shows just the timer. Full adds today’s numbers, your record, charts, the to-do list and groups.
A to-do list beside the timer. Off hides it; nothing is deleted. The list itself shows in the Full layout.
The one-tap choices above the task box. Subjects shows the three subjects you’ve used most lately. Categories shows your three most-used categories, and a tap on one picks the subject you use most in it. With no categories, or none used lately, it shows subjects. Works in the Full layout. Works when you’re signed in.
While a run is going, you’re counted among the people focusing right now. Anonymous.
On the timer, once 10 or more people are focusing.
Today’s or this week’s runs as a table, ready to paste into Notion or another notes app.
Every run as a file Notion imports: there, choose Import, then CSV. It opens in Excel too.
All your data as JSON, or your runs as CSV for a spreadsheet. Ctrl+S exports too.
Brings back a JSON file you exported. Dropping the file onto the page works too.
Paste a to-do list from Apple Notes, Keep, Notion or an AI chat. You check it before anything is added.
Change your answer about cookies for ads. Where Google asks first, this reopens its question.No ads show for you on the timer. The privacy page has your ad choices for the rest of the site.No ads on this network: it is on the site’s ad-free list.
The site’s admin changed your name to a placeholder. Names show to other people in groups, so they need to suit everyone. Nothing else about your account changed. If you think this was a mistake, tell us with Send feedback.
3 to 24 characters: a–z, 0–9, hyphen or underscore.
Leave it empty to show your handle.
Not open yet. When it opens, you can choose one short email a week about a study technique that works with the timer. Nothing is sent unless you turn it on.
Each browser that gets reminders while signed in here. Stop deletes its reminder details from the site.
One per device or browser. A second one means losing a device never locks you out.
This is your only way in, so it can’t be removed. Add another passkey or an email first.
Signs this browser out. Your runs and tasks stay with your account.
Removes your sessions, history, email, passkeys, recovery codes and group memberships, at once and for good. There is no undo and no copy kept for you.
Share a link with people you know. When someone makes an account with it and does 2 runs, 30 minutes in all, within 30 days, it counts. When 3 have counted, the Iris theme opens. You can make a separate link for each place you share one, to see where each person came from. Invites are for other people, not your own extra accounts. (opens in a new tab)
A number only, never who.
Small marks for things you’ve done with the timer. Once earned, they’re yours to keep.
Some stay out of sight until you reach them.
Just for fun: the names are milestones we picked and the pictures are our own drawings, not anyone’s insignia, logo or emblem. The ranks aren’t Australian Defence Force rank badges, the job titles are only names and the flight times are rough. Nothing here is endorsed by the Australian Defence Force or anyone else.
A rating, a few words or both. Every one is read by the person who makes the timer. If you go back to the timer, your words wait here while this page stays open.
Every message is read, and ideas are thought through before anything changes.