20-20 Break Timer

A lightweight Windows system tray app that reminds you to take regular movement breaks throughout your workday.

Built around the idea of periodic screen/sitting breaks — work for a set interval, then step away, look away, breathe.

Features

• System tray icon — lives quietly in your taskbar, showing time remaining on the current cycle
• Configurable intervals — set work duration and break duration in seconds, minutes, or hours
• Escalating alerts — gentle beep when a break is due, urgent beep if you ignore it too long
• Break countdown — full-screen countdown window during breaks
• Stats tracking — daily completed/skipped counts, streak tracking, 14-day bar chart
• Pause / Resume — pause the timer when you step away or attend a meeting
• Start with Windows — optional autostart via the Windows registry
• Start minimised — can launch straight to the tray with no window

Screenshots

Main Timer	Stats	Settings

Requirements

• Windows 10/11
• Python 3.8+
• Pillow and pystray

Setup

Option A — automated (recommended):

setup.bat

This will check whether Python is installed, attempt to install it via winget if not, and then install the required dependencies. If automatic installation fails, it will print step-by-step instructions.

Option B — manual:

1. Install Python from python.org — tick "Add Python to PATH" during install
2. Run:

pip install Pillow pystray

Running

Double-click run.bat, or:

pythonw 20-20.py

Using pythonw instead of python prevents a console window from appearing. The app will appear in your system tray.

Usage

Action	How
Open main window	Left-click or double-click the tray icon
Pause / Resume	Tray menu → Pause Timer
Take a break now	Tray menu → Take Break Now
View stats	Tray menu → Show Stats
Change intervals	Tray menu → Settings
Quit	Tray menu → Quit

Closing the main window hides it to the tray — the timer keeps running.

Settings

Open Settings from the tray menu or main window.

Setting	Default	Description
Time between breaks	20 minutes	How long you work before a break is triggered
Break duration	20 seconds	How long each break lasts
Start minimised	Off	Launch directly to tray with no window
Start with Windows	Off	Add to Windows startup via registry

Settings are saved to settings.json in the app folder.

Files

File	Purpose
20-20.py	Main application
run.bat	Launch shortcut (no console window)
setup.bat	Install dependencies
settings.json	Saved settings
timer_data.json	Break history and stats