Visual Timer

A couple of months ago I bought myself a visual timer.

Visual timers are basically what they sound like. Once set, they give a visual cue as to how much time is left before they go off. And it is so much easier to get an idea of how time is passing when you’re using one. I love my visual timer. It’s pink, which, well, obviously that’s a good thing. And the timer part is red so it has kind of a Valentine-y feel that I rather enjoy.

I’m not super-consistent with actually using it yet, but I’ve noticed that when I do, it makes my life unmistakeably easier. I try to keep it near me to encourage remembering to use it, but, of course, as with every other useful thing, it eventually tends to become part of the background. I just stop seeing it, so it no longer serves to remind me of anything. I don’t have a solution for this yet.

In any case, here are the four main ways I use it, when I use it.

First, I use it to get me moving when I’m “stuck,” thanks to executive dysfunction. I set the timer for something like fifteen minutes or half an hour, whatever I feel like I actually need to prepare for whatever I’m about to do (for example, cleaning or taking a shower), and then when it beeps, that’s my signal that it’s time to move on to whatever task I’ve been so far unable to start. Putting a time limit on how long I have before I have to Do the Thing makes it easier to transition to a task that is difficult but necessary.

Second, I use it to set myself a brief window of time in which to work on an unpleasant task. This is usually a cleaning task. It means I get to stop when the timer beeps, but it also means that I can do something that feels like it takes forever (such as emptying the dish rack), glance at the timer, and realize that it’s actually only been a few minutes. It can cause a rapid shift in perspective on the task I’ve just finished and can even mean that instead of feeling drained because I feel like I’ve spent the last half hour putting dishes away, I feel energized because I did it so quickly and hey, look at all that time I have left! And on I go to the next task.

The third way I use it is actually the reason I bought it in the first place: Pomodoro. The basic Pomodoro technique is work for 25 minutes, take a short break, work for 25 minutes, take a short break, work for 25 minutes, take a long break. I have not been very successful at this, since I rarely get through 25 minutes without getting distracted. But I do try, and I use this mainly for working and sometimes writing.¹

The fourth and final way I use my visual timer is to… ahem… set it for about half a minute and wait for it to beep. Then do it again. And again. I admit that it may be annoying.

But the visual timer isn’t the only alert in my life. I use alarms on my phone to wake me up, and to make sure I take pills.² I have calendar alerts to remind me of upcoming appointments (and recurring tasks, like Echo’s parasite preventatives), but since the time to get ready and drive somewhere may vary by the day, I sometimes set an alarm on my phone in the morning to remind me to start getting ready to leave the apartment at the appropriate time if I actually have to go somewhere, too. This paragraph explains why I very rarely put my phone on silent even though unexpected phone calls and texts send me into a brief but intense panic.

I used to set reminders for all the things I wanted to do in a day, but I found that I quickly became habituated to the sound of reminders hitting my phone and by the end of the day I would have a long list of them that I never even noticed, let alone completing the associated task. Right now, I’m trying to train myself to refer to my (paper) journal when I’m not sure what to do, where I keep all kinds of trackers for daily and weekly tasks. One problem with this is that as the evening wears on I stop checking the journal, telling myself I remember what’s in it and I can just check it off in the morning. But I do not remember what’s in it. So, I’m working on doing things that I previously thought of as “just before bed tasks” as “after dinner tasks.”

Back to the visual timer!

I think the best things this does for me are to decrease anxiety and help me challenge my executive dysfunction. It may help with focus, but the visual cue of, say, a quarter of an hour left before… whatever it’s before… really facilitates the transition into and out of tasks that are difficult for me on my schedule, with minimal feelings of trepidation.

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¹ Hey look, I’ve only got two minutes left on this one!

² My non-pill-but-ingestible medication is tied to food intake, so I can’t effectively set an alarm for it. So I actually forget this one a lot.