In Timeboxing you choose a tier. The app rolls the exact length inside that tier's range. You never type a number. This is not a limitation waiting to be fixed. It is the method.
Every timer that lets you choose the minutes opens a negotiation. Twenty-five? Twenty. Maybe fifteen today, it has been a long week. The negotiation happens before the work starts, and it is always settled in favour of less. By the time the timer runs, the task has already been cut down to what you felt like.
A range closes the negotiation. You commit to “a sitting,” 20 to 40 minutes, and the clock decides whether it is 27 or 36. There is nothing left to bargain over, so you start.
When you know a block is exactly 25 minutes, you play to 25. You watch the clock. You pace the work to end at the bell. You stop at 24 because it is nearly over. A rolled length has no finish line to play to. You work until the timer says stop, and the timer does not tell you in advance. The work fills the box instead of the box shaping the work.
You do know roughly how big a task is: a push, a warm-up, one task, a sitting, a session, a shift. Those are honest categories. “Exactly 32 minutes” is not knowledge. It is a guess wearing a number. The tiers ask for the thing you actually know and leave the guess to the clock.
| Tier | Range | What you are committing to |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 to 6 min | A push. Starting. |
| 2 | 6 to 12 min | A warm-up. |
| 3 | 12 to 20 min | One task. |
| 4 | 20 to 40 min | A sitting. |
| 5 | 40 to 80 min | A session. |
| 6 | 80 to 120 min | A shift. |
A ledger of blocks is only worth reading if the blocks were not shaved. Rolled lengths mean every row in your history was a real commitment, not the smallest number you could talk yourself into that day. Over months, that is the difference between a record and a diary of good intentions.
The first day you look at the roll and feel cheated. By the third day you stop looking. By the end of the week you press a tier and start, and the number is just a fact about the block, like the time it began. That is the point. The decision moved from the minutes, where it was costing you, to the size, where it belongs.
See the ranges in use: how long should a timebox be. Or start from what is timeboxing.