How to use Time to Go

Time to Go turns a date interval into equal visual units.

1. Choose a start

Use a fixed calendar date when you want the visualization to preserve a historical starting point.

Choose Today (keeps moving) when you want the shared link always to begin from the day it is opened. Those choices can look identical today but behave differently tomorrow.

2. Choose an end

Pick a date after the start. Time to Go measures the calendar interval between them.

3. Choose the scale

Days give more detail and work best for shorter intervals. Weeks compress longer intervals into a readable grid. Auto lets Time to Go choose.

If you explicitly request days for a period that would create too many squares, the site switches to weeks and tells you why.

4. Read the grid

Elapsed squares represent time that has already passed. The current square marks where today falls. Remaining squares represent time still ahead.

Some editorial pages also use a target-window style when an official date is approximate rather than exact.

5. Share the view

Your selected dates and unit are stored in the URL query string. Copy or share that URL to reproduce the visualization.

A URL that uses start=now remains dynamic: its starting date moves with the calendar.

Dates are not timestamps

Time to Go works with calendar dates so daylight-saving changes and time zones do not accidentally turn a calendar day into a 23- or 25-hour counting error.

Approximate future dates

If an organization says “by 2050” or “early 2028”, Time to Go keeps that level of precision. It does not invent a specific day just to make the countdown look exact.