15 Minute Timer

The page opens with 15 in the Minutes box and the clock reading 15:00, which is 900 seconds. For most jobs you can start straight away.

1. Glance at Hours, Minutes and Seconds. They read 0, 15 and 0. Adjust them only if you need an odd length, such as 12 minutes 30 seconds.
2. Add a Label (optional), for instance Stand-up or Homework. When time runs out, the message names it, which helps when several people share a screen.
3. Decide on Play a sound when time is up. It is ticked at first, and a tone is useful when you are across the room from the device.
4. Press Start, then use Full screen if a group should be able to read the clock.
5. If something interrupts you, press Pause and later Resume. Press Reset to put the clock back to the length in the three fields.

The keyboard shortcuts are Space to start or pause and R to reset while stopped, whenever the cursor is outside a text box.

A meeting that is limited to 15 minutes tends to stay on topic, but only if the time is shared out beforehand. Here is one way to divide it for four people, with the time the clock should show when each part ends:

The progress bar helps here. When it is half full, 7:30 remain, so anyone can see at a glance whether the discussion is ahead of or behind the plan.

Short meetings are also cheaper than they feel, which is a good reason to protect them. Take six people whose time is valued at $40 an hour. A quarter of an hour is 0.25 hour, so the cost is 6 x 40 x 0.25 = $60. If you only know a yearly salary, the salary to hourly calculator gives the hourly figure to use, and the time converter turns minutes into decimal hours.

Treat figures like this as a rough guide to how time is spent, not a precise measure of value.

The same plan works for a call. Share the agenda in the invitation, and say at the start that the timer will end the meeting at 15 minutes, so late items move to a follow-up message instead of overrunning.

Fifteen minutes is a handy block for household routines. Children often respond better to a clock they can watch than to being told to hurry, so put the timer in Full screen on a tablet and let them see the bar fill while they tidy their room. Families who agree on a screen-time slot before dinner can use the same page to mark its end.

In the kitchen, a recipe that says to simmer for 15 minutes can use the timer, provided you start it when the pot is actually simmering and not when you switch the heat on. If a pack gives a different time, set that instead. Cooking times vary with the pan and the stove, so the timer says when to check, and tasting or testing says when the food is ready.

Rest breaks are another fit. Fifteen minutes is about the length of a tea break or a short walk outdoors, and a label such as Back at desk helps you remember what the alarm is for. A few limits are worth knowing:

• No extra time button. You cannot add minutes to a running timer. If a meeting overruns, let it ring and start a 5 minute timer for the remainder.
• One timer at a time. There is no second timer for a second task on the same page.
• Page must stay open. A closed tab or a locked phone can stop the clock or the sound.

For longer blocks, use the 30 minute timer, or the time calculator to add several short slots together and see the total.