Pomodoro Timer

2 Minute Timer

Counts down 2 minutes, with optional breaks. Ends at … if you start now.

25:00

A two-minute countdown that starts on one click and sounds an alarm at zero. It runs toward a fixed end time rather than counting seconds, so a background tab, a locked screen or a slow machine will not make it drift. No download and no account.

Two minutes is the length people underestimate most. It is the answer to the two-minute rule from David Allen's Getting Things Done, which says anything you can finish in under two minutes should be done on the spot rather than written on a list. It is also how long dentists ask you to brush, which is why electric toothbrushes have a two-minute cycle built in. Both cases work the same way: the number is short enough to accept and long enough that guessing it goes badly.

What fits in 2 minutes

  • Brushing your teeth for the full two minutes rather than the forty seconds it feels like
  • Clearing the small inbox items the two-minute rule says to just handle
  • A two-minute freewrite to get moving on a document you have been circling
  • A reset between back-to-back video calls before you rejoin
  • Holding a stretch long enough for it to count for anything

As a pomodoro

Shorter than any pomodoro break. Two minutes is under half the classic five-minute break, so it works better as a task timer than as rest between focus sessions.

Four 25-minute sessions with 5-minute breaks take 1 hour 55 minutes.

Open this as a pomodoro cycle

FAQ

What is the two-minute rule?

David Allen's rule from Getting Things Done: if a task takes less than two minutes, do it immediately instead of adding it to a list. Capturing, sorting and revisiting a tiny task costs more than the task does. Setting an actual two-minute timer stops one small job absorbing twenty minutes.

Is two minutes really long enough to brush your teeth?

Two minutes twice a day is the standard recommendation, and it is the reason most electric toothbrushes run a two-minute cycle with quadrant alerts. People consistently guess they have brushed longer than they have, which is exactly the sort of gap a timer fixes.

Can I run two-minute rounds back to back?

Yes. Press start again when it rings, or turn on auto-start so the next round begins on its own. For repeated rounds with rest between them, the custom timer page lets you set a two-minute work block against a rest period of whatever length you want.