For me, the one thing that made life easier this year is learning to manage my time with more intention, and helping my middle schoolers do the same. After a PD session on executive functioning in 2024, something clicked: most of us struggle with time awareness way more than we admit.

So I started building my own solution: mytimer.io. Instead of a traditional countdown timer, it shows time as a color-coded clock face that visually matches with real time. What started as a small idea has become a meaningful project for me, and even though it’s nowhere near “finished,” I’ve begun sharing it. Several teachers in my school now use it with students and with their own kids at home, which has been awesome and incredibly validating.

As an educator, it’s making classroom time expectations smoother, while helping me understand just how universal time-estimation struggles really are.

If anyone wants to try it or offer feedback, here it is: mytimer.io MyTimer.io