This is a free visual timer. A ring empties as time passes and the countdown shows in your browser tab, set to 15-minute rounds with 5-minute breaks. Some people with ADHD find time easier to manage when they can see it. It isn't a medical tool or a treatment, and nothing here is medical advice.
What is time blindness?
It’s an informal name for real trouble sensing how much time has passed or how much is left. Writing for CHADD, occupational therapist Adam Ly describes time agnosia, “commonly known as time blindness”, as a consistent difficulty with perceiving time, sequencing it and reproducing it.
It shows up in the official descriptions too. The NHS lists “finding it hard to organise your time” among the signs of ADHD in adults. Not everyone with ADHD has it, and plenty of people without ADHD lose an afternoon now and then. The term describes an experience; it isn’t a diagnosis.
Why does a visual timer help some people?
Because it puts time somewhere you can see it, instead of asking you to feel it. ADDitude suggests keeping analogue or visual clocks around you so you can watch time passing, and mentions timers that show it as a shrinking red disc. The CHADD article lists visual timers among its strategies for time blindness at work.
On this page, a ring empties as the round runs down, so you can tell at a glance whether you’re near the start or nearly done. The countdown also sits in the browser tab’s title, so it’s visible from whatever else you have open. A soft chime marks the end, and you can turn it off. Whether it helps you is something to find out by trying it. It’s a tool some people like, not a fix, and one of several focus tools for ADHD brains.
Why are the rounds shorter here?
Because a near finish line is easier to believe in. This page starts at 15 minutes, with 10 for days when even that feels like a lot and 25 for when you’ve got momentum. CHADD’s list also includes breaking larger tasks into smaller ones to reduce overwhelm, and a short round is one way to do that with time.
There’s nothing to lose by stopping. Reset starts a round again and Skip moves on to the break. There’s no streak on the web timer, so nothing breaks if you walk away.
Can a dog on screen be a body double?
Not in the usual sense, but some people like the company. In ADHD circles, a body double is someone who sits with you while you do a task you’d struggle to do alone. As Dr Patricia Quinn writes in ADDitude, they might just sit quietly or read.
A 2024 survey of 220 neurodivergent people found the community roughly defines it as using the presence of others to start, stay focused on, or finish a task, in person or remote, live or recorded. Patches isn’t a person. He’s a Bull Arab on a sofa, and he’ll be asleep within about four minutes. If having him there makes the room feel less empty, that’s a feeling worth having. It isn’t a treatment. There’s more in what body doubling is, and whether a dog can count.
Is this a medical tool?
No. It’s a free timer with a picture of a dog in it. It isn’t a medical device or a treatment for ADHD, it makes no promises about attention, and nothing on this page is medical advice. If ADHD, or the possibility of it, is making daily life hard, a GP or another qualified clinician is the right place to start. They can talk through assessment and the kinds of support that have evidence behind them. A timer can sit alongside that. It can’t stand in for it.
Only in the app
This page is the timer and Patches. Doggydoro for iPhone is the rest of the room:
- Ten breeds to choose from, and a name of your own for yours
- Finds at the end of a session, kept in a collection
- Other apps kept out of the way while you focus, and a bedtime lock
- The countdown on your Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island
- A room you furnish with bones earned by focusing
- Eleven sounds to work under, sticky-note tasks, Logs and your streak
Other timers
- A Pomodoro timer with a dog in it: 25 minutes on, 5 off
- A 25 minute timer: 25 minutes on, 5 off
- A 50 minute timer: 50 minutes on, 10 off
- A 90 minute timer: 90 minutes on, 20 off
- A 15 minute timer: 15 minutes on, 5 off
- A study timer with a dog in it: 25 minutes on, 5 off
- A 5 minute break timer: 5 minutes on, 5 off
Updated