Meeting timer

In short: A meeting timer gives each agenda item a time box and counts it down, so everyone can see when to move on. This one shows an overrun as soon as it starts, keeps the time each item really took, and works out the expected finish time from what is left of the plan: a 45:00 agenda started at 10:00 ends at 10:45 if every item keeps to its time.

Last updated 11 October 2026

How to use the meeting timer

1. Type the agenda, one item per line, with its minutes at the end: Team updates 15. You can write 15 min, 90s or 1h 30m, put the minutes at the start instead, or paste a numbered list. One of the agenda templates pastes in exactly as it is copied, notes and all. A line with no time box is listed under the box rather than dropped without a word.
2. Add the start time if you know it. The timer then shows the clock time each item should begin and when the meeting will end. Without it, the times count from the moment you press Start.
3. Press Start when the meeting begins, and Next item when the group moves on. Pause holds the clock for an interruption; Previous goes back if you moved on too soon.
4. Watch the expected finish time. It is now plus whatever is left of the current item plus every item after it, so it moves later when an item runs over and earlier when one finishes early.

The table under the timer fills in as you go: each item's time box, when it starts by the plan, what it really took, and how far over or under it went. Copy agenda and times puts the whole list on your clipboard for the notes, and Copy share link gives you an address that opens the same agenda on someone else's screen.

A meeting agenda timer with a time box for every item

A time box is a fixed amount of time for one piece of work: when it runs out, the group decides on purpose whether to stop, carry on or come back to it later, instead of drifting. Here is the example agenda the timer offers, 4 items and 45:00 in all, with the minute each item starts and ends counted from the start of the meeting:

Time boxes are a fixed part of Scrum: the Scrum Guide calls the Daily Scrum a 15-minute event and caps Sprint Planning at eight hours, the Sprint Review at four and the Sprint Retrospective at three for a one-month Sprint, with shorter events for shorter Sprints. The same habit works for any meeting. Giving the decision the longest box, as the example does, says where the time should go before anyone starts talking.

Countdown, overruns and the finish time

Each item gets its own countdown. When it reaches zero the clock keeps counting, now with a plus sign, the panel changes colour and a line reads "Over by" and the minutes. Suppose the meeting starts at 10:00 and the updates in the example take 19 minutes instead of 15. At 10:24 the timer shows the item 4:00 over and the meeting 4:00 behind: the expected finish has moved from 10:45 to 10:49. Move on and the overrun stays in the table (19:00 taken against a 15:00 box). If the decision then takes 16 minutes instead of 20, the timer shows the meeting back on time, with the last item still to come.

The timer reads the time from your device's clock rather than counting ticks, so it stays exact in a background tab, on a laptop that went to sleep, or on a phone with the screen off. An item's time box can be anything from one second to eight hours, and up to 50 items fit in one agenda.

A meeting timer online for Zoom, Teams and Google Meet

Because the meeting timer online runs in an ordinary browser tab, it works in any video call: share the tab or the window in Zoom, Microsoft Teams or Google Meet and the whole call sees the countdown, the item in progress and what comes next. The person running the meeting can keep it on a second screen instead and call time out loud. In a room, put it on the projector or the TV, or leave a phone on the table. Nobody needs an account, an app or an extension, and nothing you type leaves your browser.

Breaks, the chime and the keyboard

A workshop or a long planning session needs breaks, and the agenda treats them like any other item: add a line such as Break 10 and the timer becomes a break timer for those ten minutes, with the same countdown and the same warning when people should be back. Sound is off by default. Tick the chime box and a short tone plays once when an item's time is up, which helps when the screen is not in view. Every button works from the keyboard, and so do short keys when the focus is not in a field: Space or K starts and pauses, N or the right arrow moves on, P or the left arrow goes back. Screen readers hear each new item and each overrun once, not every second.

Plan the agenda before the meeting

The timer works best with a short, specific agenda. The weekly team meeting agenda, the one-on-one agenda and the sprint retrospective agenda come with suggested times you can paste in line by line. To see what the meeting costs in people's time, try the meeting cost calculator, and for a call across cities, find an hour that suits everyone with the time zone meeting planner. A five minute opener from the team meeting icebreakers fits neatly into the first time box.

Este temporizador también está en español: temporizador para reuniones.