45-minute brainstorming session with a washing machine and a timer, if you are doing this in the middle of the day

1 Before you start

• Put the thing you keep reaching for out of arm's reach.
• Decide in advance that a bad sentence is still progress.
• Turn off notifications for the next block, not just to silent.
• Lower the bar until starting feels almost silly, then start.
• Have a piece of paper beside you for the thoughts that will try to interrupt.

2 While the timer runs

• If nothing is working, write badly on purpose for two minutes.
• If you are bored, the boredom is usually the last thing before something clicks.
• If the task suddenly feels impossible, make it smaller rather than stopping. One paragraph. One function. One row.
• If you feel restless, change your posture rather than your task.

3 When it ends

• Have a drink of water before you check anything.
• Look out of a window for thirty seconds. Your eyes have been at one distance for a while.
• If it went badly, note one thing that worked anyway. There is usually one.

4What to put on

a washing machine — Domestic, mechanical, and oddly steadying. The sound of something else being dealt with.