3 Minute Timer
A 3 minute timer counts down 180 seconds and sounds an alarm when it reaches zero. That is 0.05 decimal hours on a timesheet, or 5% of an hour.
A three minute timer is a kitchen length before it is a productivity one, and it is the classic egg timer setting that gave the sand timer its shape.
Paused at 3:00
Your focus time, counted and kept
A countdown tells you when the block ends. PomoTodo records that the block happened, which task it went to and what the week added up to, so a month of 3 minute blocks becomes something you can actually look at.
Free plan tracks unlimited focus time across unlimited tasks. No card required.
The 3 minute timer at a glance
| Attribute | Value |
|---|---|
| Length | 3 minutes |
| Seconds | 180 |
| Decimal hours | 0.05 |
| Clock format | 0:03 |
| Share of an hour | 5% |
| Blocks per hour | 20 |
| Blocks per 8 hour day | 160 |
| Pomodoros (25 min each) | 0.12 |
| Decimal hours are rounded to two places, which is how payroll systems record them. Blocks per hour and per day count whole blocks only and ignore the break between them, so a working day fits fewer in practice. | |
What a 3 minute timer is used for
Soft boiled eggs, black tea, breathing exercises and short rounds.
- Soft boiled eggs
- Three minutes in boiling water produces a runny yolk and a just-set white for a medium egg.
- Steeping black tea
- Three minutes is the lower end of the range for black tea, where green tea is already past its best.
- Boxing rounds
- A professional round is three minutes, followed by one minute in the corner, which is why gym bag work is timed the same way.
- Box breathing sets
- Three minutes covers roughly eleven cycles of the four-count box breathing pattern.
3 minutes in other units
- 3 minutes is 180 seconds.
- On a timesheet, it is recorded as 0.05 decimal hours.
- It is 5% of an hour.
- 20 of them fit into one hour.
- An eight hour working day holds 160, before any break between blocks.
- Against the classic twenty-five minute Pomodoro, it is 0.12 blocks.
Converting a different length is what the minutes to decimal hours converter is for, and adding several together is what the hours calculator does.
Timers either side of 3 minutes
If 3 minutes is the wrong length, the two nearest are 2 minutes and 4 minutes.
Questions about the 3 minute timer
Is three minutes right for a soft boiled egg?
For a medium egg lowered into already boiling water, yes, and the yolk stays runny. A large egg or a fridge-cold one wants closer to four minutes, and four and a half gives a jammy yolk rather than a liquid one.
How many three minute rounds fit in an hour?
Twenty, with no rest between them. Boxing's round-plus-corner pattern of three minutes on and one off fits fifteen rounds into an hour.