I used to read analog clocks to the nearest five minutes. It’s just a quick glance and you (used to) rarely need to be that exact.

However my kids never got used to analog clocks despite an annoying number scattered throughout our house. It takes them too long to process what I mean by “quarter of”. They’re in college this year so it’s time to surrender in that battle. Now I’m the one who spends too much time reading analog clocks, trying to read them to nearest minute.

With digital clocks everywhere, gps exact trip times, scheduled meetings, society has gotten much more exact with time anyway. Being within five minutes is no longer good enough

Get a good clock - the ten minute intervals will be clearly marked as well as five with lil’ submarkers. You can train your pattern recognition that way

Source: am old

You’ll just get used to it over time. Think of it as spatial rather than numeric.

It’s actually easier on the brain in my opinion.

I break it into quarters first 12-3, 3-6, 6-9, 9-12. I break it into thirds next, this gets the hour.

Then for minutes i do the same and just do quick caculations in my head,

1/3 of a quarter before 6 is 25 minutes, 1/3 of a quarter after 9 is 50 minutes.

The only thing im really remembering is that values at the quarters,

(12/0 hours - 0 min), 3 hr - 15 min, (6 hr - 30 min), 9 hr - 45 minutes.

After a while it becomes second nature. I learned this when i was a kid because digital clocks werent as common then.

The concept of numbers doesn’t come up. The way the hands are conveys the fraction of the hour or half day that has passed. There’s never a need to know the exact number, time is continuous and not discrete. The minute hand will move fractional minutes, too.

GenX here. I wanted to reassure you that it didn’t come naturally to me and i grew up when this was still taught in school. The real answer is practice. Read a clock several times a day for a few weeks. Take a moment to think about the mintue hand. Is it about 2/5 of the way to the next digit? 3/5? After a while, you won’t have to think. You will just recognize.

I grew up with analog clocks and can read them at a glance.

For the most part, I don’t really care precisely about minute. E.g. the analog clock in my kitchen is only used to tell me that it’s “roughly 2 minutes past 5 soon” and it’s enough for me to put the potatoes on.

If I need to know precisely whether it’s 16:03 vs 16:04, I use a digital clock. Though mostly because my analog clocks are not precisely synced at all times.

Back when analog was the norm, nobody cared about a minute here or there unless they had some specific profession. Like, the bus came “15:15 ish maybe 5 minutes early maybe 10 minutes late”. Everyone’s clock were off by at least 2 minutes anyway.

Today in the digital age, the bus schedule says “15:17”

If I’m bored, sure. Otherwise it’s to the nearest 5 minutes

I usually round to 5 minutes. If I for whatever reason need the exact minute it will take a couple of second to see, depending on the design of the clock.

I … look at them. There is no actual thinking that occurs. If it is 9:22 then it is 9:22. If it is 9:23 then it is 9:23. I understand your question, but if the trailing side of the minute hand is not yet even with or past the plane of the upcoming minute, then it remains the previous minute.

I think of analog time as kinda a pie chart telling me how much of the minute and hour that’s elapsed. So I don’t see 13:45, I see 75% past one o’clock.

Does that make sense?

I guess I’m at that age where stuff like this means I’m old 😂

I’ll answer your question though: just buy a watch that the minutes are clearly marked with ticks and the minute hand moves by the minute and isn’t in constant motion.

Here’s some friendly advice though. Before digital, there really wasn’t a way to be so accurate down to the minute. Remember there wasn’t even really a way to get the right time. You just got it from somewhere else and hoped that time was accurate. Most people set their watches to the places that we’re important to them, ie work. So that they they were on time to whatever it was that they needed to get to.

With that said, anyone that needed pinpoint accuracy had other means of getting the time or they used very expensive chronometers that kept time extremely well. In other words normal people just did stuff a couple minutes early in case their watches were slow.

ALL OF THAT to say if you want accuracy down to the minute, just use digital.

If I need that level of precision, I’ll use a digital clock or set an alarm.

I can usually tell the time, at a glance, within 1-2 minutes which is precise enough for 99.999% of cases. Most IRL scheduling has a lower bound of 5-minute increments, so looking at an analog clock for the exact minute isn’t really necessary. e.g. 7:21 and 7:23 are effectively the same for all but the rarest of my purposes.

My primary wall clock has a second hand and clearly defined minute tick marks, and syncs nightly to public timekeeping signals (the so-called “atomic” clock). This satisfies my precision needs.

If your watch doesn’t have a second hand you may want one that does. If you see the minute hand at 9:23 but the second hand it at 45 seconds, then you know it is 9:22:45. It does take an extra glance, but only when you need that exact time.

However, that also depends on being synced to “real” time for it to matter. Therefore most analog watches will always be a little off. Over time (no pun intended) you would learn what the “drift” of the watch is.

To ensure you are on time and you only had an analog watch, you would just be early to ensure you are not late.

Its six – five = (approx) 06:25:00 (notice minute hand is pointing at 5)

its seven – eight’n’half = (approx) 08:42:05 (minute hand pointing between 8 and 9)

I just do quick maths, I have multiplication table memorized from all the way to 9, since first grade.

They literally make a “poem” on multiplication table in mainland China where I was from (all the way to 9x9, but multiples of 10 is obvious so they ommitted it, afiak).

So my thought process is:
一五的五 (1, 5 = 5)
二五一十 (2, 5, 10)
三五十五 (3, 5, 15)
四五二十 (4, 5, 20)
五五二十五 (5, 5, 25)
五六三十 (5, 6, 30)
五七三十五 (5, 7, 35)
五八四十 (5, 8, 40)
五九四十五 (5, 9, 45)
(this is the point where my thoughts switch away from mandarin and just thinking pure numbers)
5 x 10 = 50
5 x 11 = 55
5 x 12 = wait… no need, its just 0 mins again

So yea just remember how to recall the “poem” out of thin air and summon the numbers, takes about like 1-2 seconds, mandarin being 1 sylable per charater make it easier to remember (七七四十九 – 5 sylables vs “Seven times seven is fourty nine” – 9 sylables). Sorry I don’t know how everyone else do multiplication tables, my brain works differently, but funny thing is, 11x11 to 14x14 really messed with my brain since it only goes to 9x9

(Yes I typed all that just to show off how they literally crammed a weird entire multiplication “poem” in my head that’s still stuck in my head to this day when I’m no longer in the country lolz. Sorry for the boring wall of text xD)

Edit: typos