Why Use A Timer?
If you have had time to visit the videos section of my website or my YouTube Channel you will find a bunch of timer videos. So why do I make timer videos?
Timers are a very helpful tool that allow kids and adults to initiate, sustain, and improve efficiency for tasks. What do I mean by that? Timers serve 3 really important purposes to me as a physical therapist.
Initiation: The most difficult part of any task or activity is simply starting, or as we say in the therapy world, “initiating”. For example, If I am sitting on the sofa scrolling my phone changing from that enjoyable activity to something like going for a run would be really hard. However, once I start the run continuing is much easier. This is where the time comes in. If I tell myself that I only have to run for 5 minutes then I can go right back to the enjoyable scrolling activity, I am much more likely to do it because I have a predetermine period of time that I am committing to the activity. So, the timer helps us initiate the task.
Sustaining: When trying to improve endurance or our ability to sustain an activity, a timer is essential. Let’s go back to my running example. When I first started running it was hard. I could only run without stopping for 60 seconds at a time. So, I alternated between running and walking, improving my time for running in small increments by using a timer. We can improve our endurance or ability to sustain a task like running, focusing on homework, standing on 1 foot, or typing by using a timer and increasing your time in small increments.
Efficiency: When tasks or activities are difficult, they usually take us longer to complete. In order to improve our speed or efficiency with task completion we can use a timer. Let’s say a student is working on independently packing their backpack. They are able to complete the task in 6 minutes but they only have 4 minutes at the end of class to do it. Using a timer to slowly increase their speed/efficiency is a great way to improve the skill. Starting with a 5 ½ minute timer and moving in increments toward 4 minutes.
Check out these timer videos to work on initiating tasks to work on healthy habits, sustaining tasks, or improve task endurance and efficiency, or head over to my YouTube Channel and check out the full playlist.
Let me know if you have an ideas for fun ways to use timers. Thanks for stopping by!
Heather
