Pomodoro Timer

3 Minute Timer

Counts down 3 minutes, with optional breaks. Ends at … if you start now.

25:00

This is a three-minute countdown. One click starts it and an alarm marks the end. Because it works from a fixed finishing time rather than counting ticks, it stays exact while you are on another tab or another window. Nothing to install, no account, no ads.

Three minutes shows up wherever someone had to decide how long is long enough. A professional boxing round is three minutes. The Three Minute Thesis competition, which started at the University of Queensland in 2008, gives doctoral researchers exactly that long to explain years of work with one slide. Black tea sits at the short end of three to five. The common thread is pressure: three minutes is enough to say or do something real and short enough that nobody can pad it.

What fits in 3 minutes

  • A boxing or circuit round at competition length
  • Steeping black tea at the short, less bitter end of the range
  • Practising a three-minute talk or conference lightning pitch
  • A trimmed-down break between focus sessions when five feels like drifting
  • Timing a child's turn at something, where a visible countdown ends the argument

As a pomodoro

A short break, trimmed. Three minutes is a tighter version of the classic five-minute break, and it suits people who find that a longer pause makes getting back in harder.

Four 25-minute sessions with 3-minute breaks take 1 hour 49 minutes.

Open this as a pomodoro cycle

FAQ

Is a three-minute break long enough between pomodoros?

For some people, yes. A shorter break keeps you near the work and makes restarting easier, which matters if five minutes tends to turn into fifteen. The trade-off is that three minutes is barely enough to stand up, get water and move, which is most of what a break is for.

How long is a boxing round?

Three minutes in professional men's boxing, with a minute of rest between rounds. Professional women's bouts usually run two-minute rounds. Amateur and club formats vary. If you are training rounds at home, set three minutes here and use the one-minute timer for the rest period.

Can I set the timer to repeat three-minute rounds?

Turn on auto-start and each round begins as the last one ends. For work and rest of different lengths, build the pair on the custom timer page, where you can set a three-minute block against a rest interval and get a link that opens the pattern already configured.