Time Timer: the gadget helping my daughter get ready for school on time
28.11.2025
Translation: Katherine Martin
Pictures: Patrick Vogt
My daughter has gone from being a chronic dawdler to a time-management guru. And it’s all thanks to the Time Timer. Rather than telling her how much time she has left to do something, my wife and I now let the gadget show her.
«Life holds one great but quite commonplace mystery. (...) That mystery, which most of us take for granted and never think twice about, is time.» This quote comes from Momo, a novel by Michael Ende that we’re currently reading to our six-year-old daughter, Zoe. Time’s a key theme in this wonderful children’s book – just as it is in Zoe’s life.
If dawdling were an Olympic sport...
When it comes to eating breakfast, washing, brushing her teeth and getting dressed, Zoe exhibits a slowness that’s second to none. Although this glacial pace isn’t limited to the mornings when she needs to get ready for school, that’s certainly when it’s most apparent. It’d be enough to make Flash the Sloth from from Zootropolis go green with envy, albeit only in slow motion.
My attempts to encourage Zoe to hurry up usually come to nothing, sometimes even achieving the opposite result. Suggestions I consider sensible, such as, «How about doing all the things you have to do first? That way, you’ll have time to play or draw afterwards,» are purposefully ignored. As are any announcements along the lines of «You’ve only got 15 minutes before you have to leave for school». One time, I told her she’d have to go to class in her PJs if she didn’t get a move on. It was a fruitless endeavour. Instead of following through on my threat, I ended up helping her get dressed at turbo speed.
Although Zoe’s dilly-dallying sometimes drives me crazy, I do understand it to a degree. I mean, let’s face it: what is time, if not the deeply human attempt to make the ephemeral tangible? Time is relative. A 15-minute time period never feels the same, neither for Zoe nor for me. How’s a six-year-old supposed to cope with that? Well, we’ve found something that helps.
The times they are a-changin’
As a matter of fact, Zoe’s been coping surprisingly well for a while now. At least when it comes to knowing how much time she has left until she has to go to school. This is partly because we’ve started showing her the time instead of telling her. We can set 60 minutes on her Time Timer, which she can see clearly. The timer then runs backwards, causing the red section – indicating the remaining time – to get smaller and smaller. Once it hits zero, the timer rings like an alarm clock.
Ever since we got the Time Timer, Zoe’s really turned things around. Where her slowness once stressed everybody out – or on particularly bad days, set tempers running high – mornings before school are now calm and relaxed. Sometimes, she turns the list of things she has to do into a race so that she’s left with as much time to play as possible. In other words, pretty much exactly what I’ve been telling her to do this whole time.
But what do parents know, anyway?
Budget-friendly alternatives
Yes, Time Timer products are expensive. Probably because they’re usually sold by stores specialising in learning and therapeutic equipment, and used in schools and treatment centres. If you ask me, Jan Rogers’ fabulous invention is worth every cent.
That said, there are certainly cheaper options out there. Zoe has a second timer – a slightly smaller one with a unicorn on it (of course).
Alternatively, you can use an ordinary kitchen timer. Or an hourglass, which my colleague Michael’s had good experiences with. The important thing is making sure your child can see how much time they have left to do something.
Time Timers and kitchen timers aside, there are some things Zoe still takes her time with. Walking to school, for instance. However, we’re wary of shoving a timer in her face in every situation. She’s a kid, after all. It’s her job to dawdle, daydream and use time as she sees fit. As Michael Ende puts it:
But time is life, and life exists in our hearts, and the more of it that the people saved, the less they actually had.
Header image: Patrick Vogt
I'm a full-blooded dad and husband, part-time nerd and chicken farmer, cat tamer and animal lover. I would like to know everything and yet I know nothing. I know even less, but I learn something new every day. What I am good at is dealing with words, spoken and written. And I get to prove that here.
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