6 Minute Timer

Press Start to count down 6 minutes.

This free 6 minute timer counts down 6 minutes with a shrinking red disc you can read at a glance. 6 minutes is 360 seconds (three hundred and sixty seconds). It is a common length for classroom station rotations, a pouch of instant rice and a short timed reading.

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What a 6 minute timer is good for

Six minutes is a teacher’s timer. With four or five learning stations in a lesson, six minutes each leaves room for moving between tables and still finishing on time, and it is long enough for a meaningful reading check.

Station rotations

Groups spend six minutes at each station before moving on. Projecting the countdown means nobody needs to ask how long is left, and transitions get quicker.

Timed reading

Six minutes of independent reading followed by a quick partner discussion fits neatly into a lesson starter or a guided reading session.

Quick-cook rice and grains

Many instant and boil-in-the-bag rice packs, and some quick-cook bulgur, need about six minutes in boiling water.

A six minute walk

The six minute walk test is a standard clinical measure of fitness. You can practise a steady walk for the same length at home.

To pace yourself, glance at the disc rather than the numbers. With the 6 minute timer running, half the colour has gone after 3 minutes, and when only a quarter is left you have 1 minute 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 6 minutes are for.

How to use the 6 minute timer

  1. It is ready

    The dial is already set to 6 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.

6 minutes in other units

6 minutes equals
Seconds360
Minutes6
Hours0.1
Fraction of a day1/240

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 360 seconds in 6 minutes. That is 0.1 of an hour, or three hundred and sixty seconds written out.

Rotating groups between classroom stations, a short timed reading, cooking quick rice or bulgur and practising a steady six minute walk.

Yes. The 6 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 6 minutes are up.

No. The 6 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 6 minutes is readable from the back of the room.

Yes, once this page has loaded. Nothing is sent over the network while the 6 minutes count down, so a dropped connection will not stop the timer.

A 50 minute lesson fits about six rotations of six minutes each with a minute between stations to move, leaving a few minutes to introduce and close.

When the 6 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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