I have the following function, written by Peter years ago, in my .zshrc:

schedprompt() {
    emulate -L zsh
    zmodload -i zsh/sched

    integer i=${"${(@)zsh_scheduled_events#*:*:}"[(I)schedprompt]}
    (( i )) && sched -$i

    zle && zle reset-prompt

    sched +30 schedprompt
}

It refreshes the prompt every 30 seconds, which is very nice.

I also have the following little widget, which displays the current dir
stack below the command line:

_show_dirs() {
    zle -M "$(dirs -vl)"
}

However, the schedprompt-function makes the output from "zle -M" disappear,
so that sometimes when I have used the widget to display the dir stack, it
disappears because of the refresh.

Is there a way to either disable the prompt refresh while the message is
displayed, or, alternatively, to redisplay the message after a prompt
refresh?