Let's say you arrive to work at 10am, and you're awaiting a 10:30am meeting. After a while you glance at the image below.

Depending on what generation you are, you have a sense of how much time has passed since you arrived, and how much time is left until your appointment. Those of us who've grown up with analog clocks instinctively turn those pie slices into graspable measures of time.

This VBT10 or Visual Bar Timer, however, seems targeted at the generation that grew up watching progress bars on screens. The rectilinear design provides a clear, linear indication of the proportion of time that has elapsed relative to the time you set.

The product is by Japanese stationery manufacturer King Jim. The progress bar's directionality, as you can watch in the video below, may seem strange to Westerners; rather than starting empty and filling from left to right, the bar starts filled in, then empties from right to left. (This may be due to the design's Japanese provenance; Japanese traditional media is read from right to left.)

The back is magnetic.

The Visual Bar Timer runs ¥2,970 (USD $20).