PIPTIM · ALWAYS ON TOP
45 Minute Timer
One school period, and about the right length to finish one thing without interruption.
Countdown timer
Tap the time to change it
PIPTIM · ALWAYS ON TOP
One school period, and about the right length to finish one thing without interruption.
Tap the time to change it
Forty-five minutes is a standard class period, and it is also what people who find 25 minutes too short usually pick for a deep work block. Work with a high context-switching cost — reading unfamiliar code, drafting long prose — often spends a whole 25-minute session just getting started.
The longer the session, the more it matters that the remaining time is visible somewhere. Around the middle of a 45-minute block, switching tabs just to check the clock is itself what ends the session.
To repeat 45 minutes of focus with 10-minute breaks, see the long focus cycle.
Too long for repetitive tasks, where attention scatters after about 25 minutes and two shorter blocks work better. Too short for writing or design work that takes ten minutes just to load the problem into your head; that is where the hour fits.
Hour-long meetings butt up against the next one, leaving no time to move or write anything down. Booking 45 leaves 15 minutes of slack, and knowing the slack exists keeps the meeting itself from sprawling.