Speech Timer
A big timer for the person speaking and the person keeping time. Set the green, yellow and red signals for a speech, count down a presentation slot, or run a meeting agenda item by item, then go full screen so the whole room can see it.
Counts up and shows green, yellow and red at the times you set.
Ready
0:00
Keyboard: Space starts or pauses, R resets, F goes full screen, N moves to the next agenda item. The screen is kept awake while the timer runs, where your browser allows it.
Speech type
Presets follow the Toastmasters contest signal times. Your club's agenda wins if it differs.
m:ss or minutes, e.g. 5:30 or 5
m:ss or minutes, e.g. 5:30 or 5
m:ss or minutes, e.g. 5:30 or 5
Options
Keep counting past the end so you know how far over it went.
A short tone at green, yellow and red.
The timer runs in your browser. Your settings and agenda are saved in this browser only and are not sent to ParrotNotes.
Writing the talk first? The Speech Time Calculator tells you how long a script runs at your speaking pace, so you can cut it to fit before you rehearse against the clock.
Green, yellow and red: what the signals mean
Speech clubs time speakers with three colored signals. Green means the minimum time is reached and the speaker may finish. Yellow means it is time to start wrapping up. Red means the time is up, and the speaker should close in a sentence or two.
The presets use the Toastmasters contest signal times. Table Topics (impromptu answers) run one to two minutes: green at 1:00, yellow at 1:30, red at 2:00. Evaluations run two to three minutes: green at 2:00, yellow at 2:30, red at 3:00. Prepared contest speeches run five to seven minutes: green at 5:00, yellow at 6:00, red at 7:00. Tall Tales run three to five minutes.
In a contest, finishing too short or too long disqualifies the speaker: under 4:30 or over 7:30 for a prepared speech, under 1:00 or over 2:30 for Table Topics. Toastmasters Magazine gives the same ranges for club meetings, with a 30-second grace period under or over the marks for everything except Table Topics. If your club's agenda sets other times, choose Custom and type them in.
Presentation timer: a countdown with a warning
For a talk with a fixed slot, a countdown is easier to read than a stopwatch: the speaker sees how much is left, not how much has gone. Enter the slot length and when you want the warning, two minutes before the end by default. The screen turns yellow at the warning and red at zero.
Leave Show overtime on and the timer keeps counting past zero (+0:42), so the next speaker and the chair know how far over it ran. Turn it off and the clock stops at 0:00.
Meeting timer: keep each agenda item to its slot
Most meetings run late one item at a time: the pipeline review takes 25 minutes instead of 15 and the last items get rushed. Type the agenda with minutes for each item, start the timer, and move to the next item when the discussion closes. The display shows the time left on the current item, what comes next, and whether the meeting as a whole is ahead or behind schedule.
Put it on the shared screen or the meeting room display. Nobody has to be the bad cop: the screen turns yellow a minute before the item's time is up, and red when it is over.
How to keep a talk or a meeting on time
The timer only helps if the speaker can see it and knows what the colors mean.
- Agree the times before you start: the slot for each speaker, or the minutes for each agenda item.
- Put the timer where the speaker can see it and the audience mostly cannot: a laptop on the front table, or full screen on a second display.
- Tell the speaker the signals: green, may finish; yellow, start wrapping up; red, close now.
- Press Space to start, and press it again to pause for a question or a technical problem.
- In a meeting, press N when an item closes. If the meeting is behind, decide in the room what to cut, rather than letting the last item disappear.
- Turn on the beep if the speaker faces away from the screen, or the vibration if you are timing from a phone.
Sources for the Toastmasters timing:
For sales meetings and presentations: sales meeting agenda, how to run effective meetings, sales QBR, staff meeting agenda template.
The timer keeps the meeting on time. ParrotNotes keeps what was said.
When the clock says move on, the decisions from that item should not vanish with it. Record the meeting with ParrotNotes and get a summary and the action items when it ends, so nobody has to take minutes while also watching the time. Free for 100 minutes of recording a month.
Get ParrotNotes freeRelated tools
- Speech Time CalculatorPaste your script or enter a word count and see how long the speech, pitch or presentation runs at a slow, average or fast speaking pace.Open the tool
- Meeting Cost CalculatorEnter who is in the room, their pay and the meeting length, and see what one meeting and a recurring series really cost.Open the tool
- Icebreaker Questions GeneratorGet icebreaker questions for a team meeting, workshop, sales kickoff or client call, filtered by group, setting and how much time you have.Open the tool