Counts your days of no contact, hands you the right work at each milestone, logs the urges you held, and resets the clock when you slip. The companion tool to the no contact rule guide by coach Benny Lichtenwalner.
Texts (memes and song links included), calls, voicemails, likes, story views, and pumping mutual friends for news. The happy-birthday text counts. The one exception: if your ex reaches out, you respond. Warm, short, light. That is not pursuit and it doesn't reset your clock.
About three months for most serious breakups, and never more than six. Short relationships with clean breaks can run 45 to 60 days. If your ex is avoidant or you begged hard after the breakup, take the long end. That is coaching observation from 1,000+ cases, not a peer-reviewed timeline.
If this is more than heartbreak, not eating, not sleeping, scary thoughts, put the counter down and call or text 988 (US). Coaching isn't therapy.