Quick answer
A Notion countdown widget shows the time left until a date, live, inside a Notion page. Playxoft's free countdown widget counts to any date and time in any time zone, in days only or down to the second, and can show your message or count up once the moment arrives. Set the date, press Copy embed link, then paste it into a /embed block in Notion.
- Any date, time and zone
- Days down to seconds
- Weeks and days
- Message or count up
- Daylight saving aware
- Five styles
How to use the Notion Countdown Widget
- 1Pick the Date and Time. Leave the date empty to count to the next New Year's Day.
- 2Choose a Time zone: Viewer's local time for birthdays and New Year, a city for launches and calls.
- 3Add a Title, choose the Units and decide what happens When it is reached.
- 4Pick a Style, then press Copy embed link.
- 5In Notion, type
/embed, paste the link and choose Embed link.
Which units should my countdown show?
| Units | Example | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Days, hours, minutes, seconds | 12 · 04 · 36 · 09 | Launches and live events: it visibly ticks |
| Days, hours, minutes | 12 · 04 · 36 | Deadlines this month |
| Days and hours | 12 · 04 | Trips and plans a few weeks out |
| Days only | 12 days | Vacations, birthdays, "sleeps until" |
| Weeks and days | 5 weeks 2 days | Exams, due dates, long projects |
| Hours, minutes, seconds | 292:36:09 | The final stretch before something big |
The largest unit holds everything above it, so Hours, minutes, seconds can read 292 hours. Unit names follow the language you choose, and Short names (12d 4h) fit narrow embeds.
How does the countdown handle time zones and daylight saving?
Viewer's local time counts to that date and time wherever each viewer is: New Year arrives at midnight in Paris for a reader in Paris and at midnight in Chicago for a reader in Chicago. Pick a city instead for something that happens at one moment for everyone, such as a product launch at 9:00 New York time; the widget then shows the target in the viewer's own words with the zone named.
Days are counted as calendar days, not blocks of 24 hours. If the clocks change between now and your date, a countdown from noon to noon three days later still reads 3 days, not 2 days 23 hours. A time that does not exist on the night the clocks go forward (2:30 AM in most of the US) moves to 3:30 AM, and a time that happens twice when the clocks go back uses the first one.
What happens when the countdown reaches zero?
You choose under When it is reached:
- Message: the numbers make way for your text, such as "We are live!" or "Happy New Year!".
- Count up: the widget keeps counting the time since, which turns it into a "days since" tracker for a launch, a habit or an anniversary.
- Stay at zero: every unit freezes at 0.
A countdown with no date counts to the next New Year's Day, shows your message on January 1, and moves on to the following year on January 2.
Countdown widget or Notion formula: which should I use?
Notion formulas can work out the days between two dates in a database with functions such as dateBetween() and now(). That is the right tool for many deadlines in a table, one value per row.
A countdown widget is for the one date that matters on a page: it is big, it ticks live down to the second, it shows a message when the moment arrives, and it looks the same for everyone who opens the page. Many dashboards use both: formulas in the task database, a widget at the top of the page for the launch.
Frequently asked questions
Last updated by the Playxoft engineering team.