Two minutes for brushing
The American Dental Association recommends brushing twice a day for two minutes with a fluoride toothpaste. Two minutes feels longer than most people guess, which is why many electric toothbrushes have a built-in timer. This page opens with the pie display: a coloured disc that shrinks as the time runs out, so you can check progress at a glance in the mirror. Press Start, brush until the alarm rings, and press Stop alarm.
On a phone, the screen stays awake while the timer runs. If you use the timer every morning and evening, bookmark this page: it keeps your chosen sound, colour and volume.
Other two-minute jobs
- The two-minute rule. In David Allen’s Getting Things Done, anything that takes less than two minutes is done at once rather than put on a list. Run the timer to check whether a task really is that short.
- Quick tidy-ups at the end of a lesson or a meeting, with the pie on the projector so everyone sees how long is left.
- Timed rounds in games, a short stretch between work blocks, or steeping a cup of green tea (the recommended time varies by tea, so check the packet).
Tips
Choose the Gentle sound for early mornings and a sleeping house, or the Buzzer if the room is noisy. Press R to reset and Space to start again. For a longer break, the 5 minute timer opens with a warning ping one minute before the end.