Timers (The Org Manual)

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### 8.6 Taking Notes with a Relative Timer

Org provides two types of timers. There is a relative timer that counts up, which can be useful when taking notes during, for example, a meeting or a video viewing. There is also a countdown timer.

The relative and countdown are started with separate commands.

`C-c C-x 0` (`org-timer-start`)

  Start or reset the relative timer. By default, the timer is set to 0. When called with a `C-u` prefix, prompt the user for a starting offset. If there is a timer string at point, this is taken as the default, providing a convenient way to restart taking notes after a break in the process. When called with a double prefix argument `C-u C-u`, change all timer strings in the active region by a certain amount. This can be used to fix timer strings if the timer was not started at exactly the right moment.

`C-c C-x ;` (`org-timer-set-timer`)

  Start a countdown timer. The user is prompted for a duration. `org-timer-default-timer` sets the default countdown value. Giving a numeric prefix argument overrides this default value. This command is available as `;` in agenda buffers.

Once started, relative and countdown timers are controlled with the same commands.

`C-c C-x .` (`org-timer`)

  Insert a relative time into the buffer. The first time you use this, the timer starts. Using a prefix argument restarts it.

`C-c C-x -` (`org-timer-item`)

  Insert a description list item with the current relative time. With a prefix argument, first reset the timer to 0.

`M-RET` (`org-insert-heading`)

  Once the timer list is started, you can also use `M-RET` to insert new timer items.

`C-c C-x ,` (`org-timer-pause-or-continue`)

  Pause the timer, or continue it if it is already paused.

`C-c C-x _` (`org-timer-stop`)

  Stop the timer. After this, you can only start a new timer, not continue the old one. This command also removes the timer from the mode line.

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