18 Minute Timer

Press Start to count down 18 minutes.

This free 18 minute timer counts down 18 minutes with a shrinking red disc you can read at a glance. 18 minutes is 1,080 seconds (one thousand and eighty seconds). Eighteen minutes is the official maximum for a TED talk, so it is the timer to practise a conference talk with.

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What a 18 minute timer is good for

TED limits its talks to eighteen minutes. Its curator Chris Anderson has said that the length is long enough to be serious and short enough to hold attention, and many conferences have copied the rule for keynotes and lightning sessions.

Practising a talk

Rehearse your talk start to finish with the disc in view. If you are still talking when the colour has gone, cut material rather than speeding up.

Section timing

Mark where you should be at six and twelve minutes. Checking the remaining colour at those points keeps the talk on schedule.

Watching a talk

Use the timer when watching a talk in class, so pupils know how long they need to listen before discussion.

A long simmer

Brown rice and pearl couscous need about eighteen minutes of simmering.

To pace yourself, glance at the disc rather than the numbers. With the 18 minute timer running, half the colour has gone after 9 minutes, and when only a quarter is left you have 4 minutes 30 seconds to wrap up. Open fullscreen if the timer needs to be read across a room, and add a label so everyone knows what the 18 minutes are for.

How to use the 18 minute timer

  1. It is ready

    The dial is already set to 18 minutes. To change it, drag the disc, tap a preset or open Custom.

  2. Press Start

    Or press the Space bar. The red disc shrinks back towards 12 o’clock as the time runs down.

  3. Watch the disc

    Read the time left at a glance, or open fullscreen for a big dial that fills the screen.

  4. Time’s up

    Your alarm plays until you press Stop. Press Reset or R to run the same time again.

18 minutes in other units

18 minutes equals
Seconds1,080
Minutes18
Hours0.3
Fraction of a day1/80

Why use this timer

Why a visual timer helps

A shrinking disc turns time into something you can see. You read how much is left at a glance, without doing sums on a clock, and an invisible deadline feels less stressful when you can watch it approach. That is why visual timers are a staple in classrooms and are widely used by people with ADHD and autistic children and adults. Read our guide to using a visual timer, how it helps with ADHD time blindness, classroom transitions and autism.

Why this timer is accurate

The countdown is anchored to your device clock rather than counted in animation frames. It does not drift if you switch tabs or your screen sleeps: it keeps running in the background and still sounds the alarm on time. When you come back, the disc jumps straight to the correct position.

Frequently asked questions

There are 1,080 seconds in 18 minutes. That is 0.3 of an hour, or one thousand and eighty seconds written out.

Rehearsing a TED-style talk to the official eighteen minute limit, pacing the sections of a presentation, timing a talk shown in class, or simmering pearl couscous.

Yes. The 18 minute countdown is anchored to your device clock rather than counted frame by frame, so it stays accurate in a background tab and the alarm still fires when the 18 minutes are up.

No. The 18 minute timer runs in your browser on phone, tablet and desktop. It is free, and there is no account, app or download.

Yes. Press the fullscreen button or the F key. The dial fills the screen, so the remaining part of the 18 minutes is readable from the back of the room.

Yes, once this page has loaded. Nothing is sent over the network while the 18 minutes count down, so a dropped connection will not stop the timer.

TED chose eighteen minutes because it is long enough to cover a serious idea and short enough to hold an audience’s full attention. Use this 18 minute timer to rehearse to the same limit.

When the 18 minutes are up the disc is empty, the screen shows Time’s up! and your alarm plays until you press Stop. It stops by itself after five minutes.

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