study ROI

temmet is a free browser-based timer — no accounts, no tracking. This recipe uses it to translate study time into an opportunity-cost figure, so you can see which subjects are absorbing the most of your attention.

for who

Adults studying on their own time. Career-changers, professionals upskilling, hobbyists going deep, anyone who wants honest feedback about how their attention is actually distributed.

the job

Track each study session against a topic, end with a record of how many hours (and how many "dollars" of opportunity cost) you've put into each subject. Use the history view to see the actual distribution — which is rarely what you think it is.

how to map it

1. One template per topic. "Calculus", "Spanish vocabulary", "TypeScript", "Music theory". Single participant — yourself — at your hourly opportunity rate.
2. Pick the right template before you start studying. One tap.
3. Set the session label to what you're actually doing. "Linear algebra chapter 3", "Italki conversation", "system design book". Specific labels make history searchable.
4. Start the meter when you sit down. Press esc when you stop.
5. At month end, search history by topic to total the time spent.

the remix

• The rate is intentionally an opportunity cost, not a tuition cost. That's what makes the number meaningful. One hour of study at $50/hr "feels" like one hour at work; the dollar figure makes the trade-off legible.
• The history search lets you compute time-per-topic without spreadsheet work. Search "calculus" → see only calculus sessions → glance at the count and durations.
• Pause between focused blocks. A study session with three twenty-minute focused stretches plus three breaks isn't a 90-minute study session — it's 60 minutes. space to pause when you stand up.
• Use the default session name as a study-quality prompt: "What am I trying to learn?" — pre-fills before each session so you start with intent.

tips

• This recipe pairs well with a Pomodoro timer for the pause structure. temmet is the meter; a Pomodoro app is the cadence. They run side-by-side.
• The PDF report at quarter-end is a study journal of sorts — what you spent your attention on, in order.
• Don't pad sessions to make the totals look good. The honesty of the number is the whole reason to use it.
• If you study a fixed schedule (say, an hour a day), history sorted by date will show you which days you actually held the line.