I have a html page with a timer in it. I'm starting the timer with the keypress event, but i want it to execute only for the first key. I'm using a variable to catch the total keys in an other function which there were pressed and i have something like that: if(totaAttempts==1) start the timer, but with this solution the timer starts correctly, but is stomps when a key is pressed again. Any better ideas? Thanks in advance function setTime() { if (totalAttempts == 1) { ++totalSeconds; secondsLabel.innerHTML = pad(totalSeconds % 60); minutesLabel.innerHTML = pad(parseInt(totalSeconds / 60)); } } function pad(val) { var valString = val + ""; if (valString.length < 2) { return "0" + valString; } else { return valString; } }