10 Second Timer

The page opens set to ten seconds: 0 in the Hours box, 0 in the Minutes box and 10 in the Seconds box. The Quick start menu has no entry for ten seconds, so it reads Custom time. That is normal, and the clock itself is already correct.

1. Check that Hours and Minutes show 0 and that Seconds shows 10. Type another number in Seconds, such as 15, if you need a slightly different length.
2. Add a Label (optional), for example Smile or Think time. It appears above the digits and again in the message when the count ends.
3. Leave Play a sound when time is up ticked. With a countdown this short you will often be looking at something else, and the beep is what tells you it has finished.
4. Press Start. The digits fall from 00:10 and the progress bar fills by one tenth of its width every second.
5. Press Reset to return to ten seconds, or Full screen for large digits that a whole group can read.

Space starts and pauses, and R resets while the timer is stopped, provided the cursor is not inside a text box. After the beep, pressing Space starts a fresh ten seconds, so every extra round costs a single key press.

Ten seconds is too short to finish real work and long enough to make a group wait, which is why it suits brief shared moments more than tasks. These are the uses that come up most often.

• Think time in class. A teacher asks a question, puts the clock on the board in full screen, and nobody answers until it beeps. Silent thinking first usually gives quieter students a chance to form an answer.
• A photo cue. Many cameras have their own self-timer, so this page is for the people in front of the lens. When a friend is holding the camera, a visible countdown tells everyone when to stop talking and smile.
• A guessing game. Everyone closes their eyes, you press Start, and each player raises a hand when they think ten seconds have passed. The beep settles who was closest.
• An icebreaker. Each person gets ten seconds to give a name and one fact. It is short enough to keep a large group moving.
• A first plank or wall sit. Beginners sometimes start with a hold of about ten seconds and add a few seconds over several sessions. Hold only as long as it feels comfortable, and stop if anything hurts.

The arithmetic is simple, and it adds up quickly when many people take a turn:

That class of 24 needs 240 seconds in all. Because each round is a separate press of Space, allow a little extra for the pauses between turns, or run the whole activity under a single 4 minute timer as a rough limit.

A long countdown gives you time to glance at it now and then. A ten second one does not, because you are usually busy with whatever the timer is for, and a silent clock would be easy to miss. That is the reason the sound option is ticked at first. The alarm is four short tones lasting a little over a second, which is clear in a quiet room and still noticeable in a classroom or a living room.

Browsers only allow a page to play sound after you have clicked or pressed a key, and pressing Start provides that. If your device is muted, or the volume is low, you will see the message Time is up but hear nothing, so check the volume before a group activity.

• Units. Ten seconds is one sixth of a minute, about 0.1667 minute, or 10,000 milliseconds. The seconds to minutes converter handles other lengths.
• One round at a time. The timer rings once and stops. There is no repeat, no second timer on the same page and no saved timer for next time.
• Page must stay open. Closing the tab ends the countdown, and a phone that locks its screen may pause the page and miss the beep.

The remaining time is measured against your device clock, so a tab that the browser slows while hidden still shows the right figure when you return. If you do not yet know how long something takes, use the online stopwatch to measure it once. For a slightly longer round, the 30 second timer and the 1 minute timer work in exactly the same way.