Article
Why every session is twenty five minutes
A session is twenty five minutes, a break is five minutes and a long break is twenty five minutes. Here is what a 2023 study found about fixed break schedules, and why the structure is the part that does the work.
Untimer has four lengths. A session is twenty five minutes. A break is five minutes. A long break is twenty five minutes and follows every fourth session. Four sessions make a set. None of the lengths can be changed, and they are the same on every screen and every device. The breaks are yours to end when you want, and so is the end of your working day.
People ask about this more than anything else, usually as a request. Could I have thirty? Could I have fifty two, because I read that somewhere? Could I have a short one for the days when starting is hard? This article explains why a product that asks so little of you is so firm about one number.
What the 2023 break study found
Twenty five minutes is a common length for focus sessions, and what matters about it is that it is the same from one session to the next.
We looked at the research. The best controlled study we found on fixed break schedules, by Biwer and colleagues in 2023, compared two fixed schedules with breaks taken whenever people felt like it. It covered eighty seven students. Groups on a fixed schedule reported higher concentration and motivation and lower fatigue and distraction. The amount of work done came out the same across all three. The two schedules were twenty four minutes on and six off, and twelve on and three off, and they came out about the same. The structure is what made the difference.
So the structure is the part that does the work. Untimer builds it in, fixes the number once, and hands you back the decision. Every session and every break has one length.
Fixed is easier to start
Untimer is built for people who find starting hard. Every choice placed between you and the start is a place to stall, and a duration setting is a choice placed exactly there. Would twenty be better today? Is thirty too much? Should this one be short because it is only email? That conversation is the thing focus is supposed to replace.
Early versions of the hourglass let you choose a length as you wound it, and that changed how the wind felt. People watched the number instead of feeling the spring. So we removed the choice. You wind the hourglass, the session is twenty five minutes, and the only decision left is whether to begin.
Starting takes one action. Hold the hourglass for two and a half seconds and let go, and a twenty five minute session starts. Why you hold the hourglass to start a session describes the hold.
The founder’s own history says the same thing: thousands of recorded sessions over several years, all the same length, with the setting available the whole time and left where it was. A number that stays put needs no control, and a control invites fiddling with something you meant to set once.
The hard days
The objection is about starting. On some days twenty five minutes is too much to start, and a two minute session would get you going. We think that is true, and a duration setting is still the wrong answer. The answer is that stopping early is fine.
You can stop a session at any time. Wind the hourglass up, work for four minutes and press Stop. The sand pours back to the bottom, a soft low note plays if sound is on, and the four minutes are saved and left out of the day’s counts. You started, which was the hard part, and the next session is the same twenty five minutes. Stopping a session early describes what Stop does.
Long sessions
The other objection is about deep work. Twenty five minutes is short for a task that takes twenty minutes to get into, and a bell in the middle of real progress is unwelcome. The session ends at zero, the sound is soft, and the break it announces waits for you. Finish the thought and come back to it: choose Focus in the selector and the hourglass is ready to wind again.
Breaks
After a session that runs its full length, the hourglass is replaced by a break scene. A break shows a figure at a window and a long break shows a figure on a bench under a tree. A break starts when you press Start the break. It runs five minutes at most and you can take less: End the break stops it the moment you have had enough, and the sessions you recorded stay as they were. So a three minute break is one press away. The next session starts when you wind the hourglass again.
The set
The set works the same way: after four completed sessions the long break comes round, and every set is four. The figure beside the time, such as 2/4, shows which session of the set you are on. After the fourth session it reads 4/4 and the long break is next.
What you can do is tell Untimer where you really are. Counts drift for ordinary reasons, such as a session run somewhere else, a long break taken away from Untimer or a set that was already half done when you opened it. Press the figure and choose which session this is, or choose Start the set again. Because the count is easy to put right, you can go on trusting it.
What is yours to set
The four lengths are Untimer’s to hold. The one thing that is yours is whether your working day has an end, and when. We think that is the one that matters. Settings has an option called An end to the working day. Turn it on, choose a time, and a flag appears at that time on the day strip at the bottom of the Timer screen. A set time to stop gives the day a place to end, and only you know where it goes.
Settings holds no session or break length, because a screen full of numbers is somewhere to go instead of starting, and starting is the hard part.