Skip to the timer
minute·timer

Revision blocks

Study timer

Set a block, put the phone in a drawer, and work until it rings. The countdown opens at 25 minutes, which is long enough to get somewhere and short enough to start without dread.

Study block

25:00

Shortcuts: space start or pause · R reset · F fullscreen. The alarm rings even if you switch tabs.

In short

A study timer divides revision into fixed blocks with breaks between them, so a session has a visible finish rather than an open-ended stretch of hours. This page opens at 25 minutes, the most common study block length, and takes any other value.

Default block
25 minutes
Typical range
15 to 50 minutes depending on age and material
Break between blocks
5 minutes
Long break
After 3 or 4 blocks

Blocks beat hours

'Three hours of study' is a plan you cannot start and cannot finish. 'One 25 minute block on quadratic equations' is a plan with an edge. Blocks give you a finish line you can see, and a record of what you actually did — six blocks is a real answer to 'how much did you do today', where 'all afternoon' is not.

A session that holds up

  1. Write the one thing this block is for before you start it.
  2. Phone out of reach, notifications off, one tab open besides this one.
  3. Start the timer and work until it rings, even if it stops feeling productive halfway.
  4. Take five minutes away from the screen. Then start the next block.
  5. After three or four blocks, take a proper break with food and daylight.

Spacing beats cramming

Timed blocks make it far easier to space work out, which is the single best-supported finding in the study skills literature: the same total hours spread across a week produce better recall than the same hours the night before. Short daily blocks, ended by a timer, are how spacing survives contact with a real timetable.

For a full paper under exam conditions, use the exam timer instead.

Questions about the study timer

How long should a study block be?

Fifteen to thirty minutes for younger students or difficult material, forty to fifty for essays and problem sets where you need to hold a lot in your head. If you keep stopping early, the block is too long; if you keep running past the alarm, extend it.

Should I time breaks too?

Yes — an untimed break is where a study session goes to die. Five minutes between blocks, timed, and you come back. The Pomodoro timer chains the two automatically.

Can I pause and come back to it later?

Yes. The same button pauses and resumes, and the space bar does both. Pausing holds the exact remaining time until you start it again.

Is there an app to install?

Not one you need. The page runs in any browser, though you can add it to a phone or tablet home screen if you would rather it opened like an app.