The One Must-Have for your PC Taskbar That You Aren’t Using

Between lawyering, working on The Bossy Brunette, oh and my recent broken foot (PSA: don’t leave piles of slippers at the bottom of the stairs), I end up in front of a computer screen for a pretty good portion of my day. This is not great for anyone.

When I’m not at work, I’m up and running around most of the time, so sitting for long periods of time is really only a problem when I’m working on something. I decided I didn’t care for the chunks of time I was sitting without moving. The problem is when I get working on something, many times I get so sucked in that I don’t notice an hour or two have gone by. I need something that will remind me to get up and move.

Setting up your timer

I did a quick search on my computer for a timer and found one in the “Alarms and Clock” section. Here’s how you can set yours up.

Open “Alarms and Clock, and you’ll see a screen pop up showing four simple options. Click on “Timer” at the top, and you’ll see something like this:

If you want to edit the timer, just click on any portion of the timer, and it’ll take you to this screen:

This is where you can change the amount of time or change the name of your timer, to, say, “Stand up!” or “Take a walk” – whatever you’re trying to remember to do.

How it works

I have mine set for 25 minutes. If I get up before the 25 minutes are up, I re-set the timer for another 25 minutes. The nice thing about this timer is that you can set it up so it’s counting down quietly in the corner of your screen, and it’s just a little unobtrusive pop-up when it’s done. When you dismiss the notification, it automatically goes back up to 25 minutes, or whatever time you had it originally set for.

How do you break up your work day? Please share any tips and tricks you use in the comments!