Timato/ blogOpen the timer

Notes on time, attention and the honest hour

We build a timer, so we think about this more than is healthy. Everything here is practical, argued from real use, and free of productivity theatre.

FeaturedMethod·7 min read

The pomodoro technique is wrong about breaks, and right about everything else

Twenty-five minutes is a fine unit of work and a terrible unit of rest. What to keep, what to bend, and why a timer should never nag you about either.

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A tomato-shaped kitchen timer beside a cup of black coffee on a dark table, lit by a nearby lamp

All writing

8 articles
Seven torn paper strips laid out as a bar chart on pale green card, one of them bright red and far longer than the rest
Method·5 min read·

Where the week went, and how to read it without flinching

A Friday ritual that takes four minutes and makes the next Monday cheaper, plus the three numbers that mislead almost everyone.

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A closed laptop on a dark wooden sill in low blue light, a strip of red tape covering its camera
Teams·6 min read·

Time tracking without surveillance, and what we refuse to build

Screenshots, idle detection, keystroke counts, leaderboards. Why each is off the table, and what a team can measure instead.

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A wooden ruler marked in inches and centimetres crossed over a yellow tape measure, a taut red thread running straight across both
Estimates·5 min read·

Your estimates are not wrong, your unit is

Teams estimate in hours and log in days. The fix is boring: estimate the next chunk only, and let the logged time argue back.

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Six paperclips standing in a row on a sheet of graph paper, each casting a long shadow across a single red line
Focus·5 min read·

Deep work for people with meetings

The ninety-minute block is a luxury good. Here is what actually survives a calendar with six interruptions in it.

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A hand-drawn grid on a sheet of paper resting on cork, four squares crossed off in pencil, a red rubber sitting on the next one and the pencil laid across the page
Method·4 min read·

Against the streak

Streak counters turn a tool into a creditor. We removed ours and nobody asked for it back. Here is what we watched instead.

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A clipped bundle of creased paper receipts and a fountain pen on a plain yellow background
Freelance·5 min read·

Billing honestly when the work is lumpy

Labels beat separate timers. A simple setup for tracking billable and non-billable work in one place without lying to yourself.

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Two blank white cards overlapping on dark slate, tied together by a loop of red thread through a small brass padlock
Teams·5 min read·

The task claim: a small lock that saves a standup

Duplicated work is a coordination bug, not a discipline problem. What changed when we made claims hard instead of polite.

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A plain chrome stopwatch lying on an off-white surface, its red hand stopped just past the top
Focus·5 min read·

Why the timer should be boring

Confetti, levels, badges. An argument for interfaces that do not celebrate, from a product that deliberately does nothing when you finish.

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Timato · made for people who lose track of time