5 Minute Timer

Five minutes is set when the page opens, so you can begin straight away.

1. Check that Minutes says 5 and that Hours and Seconds are 0. You will see 05:00 on the display. The Quick start menu also has a 5 minutes entry if you change the time and want to come back.
2. Write what the five minutes are for in Label (optional), for example Break or Tidy.
3. Decide on the alarm with Play a sound when time is up. It is on by default.
4. Press Start. The tab title shows the time left, such as 04:12 left, so you can read it from another tab.
5. Press Full screen to put the clock on a shared or distant display.

In the Pomodoro method, a 25 minute work block is followed by a short break that is often five minutes. A break only works if it ends, and a timer stops it stretching into twenty. Stand up, drink some water, look out of a window and avoid starting anything that needs more than a few minutes.

If you want the full cycle, work, short break, work, with a longer rest after four rounds, the Pomodoro timer chains the phases for you. This page is the simpler choice when you only need the break, or when your work blocks are not 25 minutes.

Other uses for the same five minutes:

• A five-minute tidy: choose one area and stop at the alarm.
• A brief meditation or breathing exercise.
• A quiz round, a warm-up or a rest between sets of an exercise.
• Steeping a pot of tea, if the packet suggests around five minutes.

Breaks work well when they are different from the work. If you have been typing, stand and move about. If you have been on your feet, sit down. Looking at your phone is the usual way a five-minute break turns into fifteen, so leave it in another room and let the alarm bring you back. If the page is on a second screen, the tab title shows the time left, which is enough to keep an eye on without opening the tab.

Five minutes is long enough to make a real start and short enough that it does not feel like a commitment. Put a task you are avoiding, such as an email or a form, inside a five-minute box and tell yourself you may stop at the alarm. Often the hard part was beginning. If you stop, you have still made progress, and if you carry on, press Reset and Start for another box.

When the alarm sounds, choose before you do anything else: stop, or run another five minutes. Deciding on the spot is easier than drifting on. For a smaller first step, the 2 minute timer is the same idea at a smaller scale, and the 10 minute timer suits a task that needs a longer burst.

This is a browser timer, so keep the page open and the sound on. A phone that locks its screen may not ring, and for anything important such as medication, use your phone alarm. The full set of controls is on the countdown timer.

A small routine makes the box work better. Write the task in the Label field before you press Start, since seeing the words on the display keeps you on one thing. Close other tabs that tempt you, and use Full screen if you share the room with others. If you finish early, stop and take the rest of the time as a pause, because the box is a limit and not a target.