45-minute focus block for decluttering — white noise, when you are at home and cannot settle

1 Before you start

• Make sure your chair is at a height where your feet are flat on the floor.
• Let go of the version of this task you imagined doing perfectly.
• Put your phone in another room, or in a drawer you cannot reach without standing up.
• Decide what you will do if you get stuck: write the problem out, then move on.
• Get water now, so you do not have to get up in fifteen minutes.

2 While the timer runs

• If you feel restless, change your posture rather than your task.
• If your attention keeps sliding, shorten the next block rather than abandoning this one.
• When you notice you have drifted, do not restart the block. Just come back and carry on counting from where the timer is.
• If the task suddenly feels impossible, make it smaller rather than stopping. One paragraph. One function. One row.

3 When it ends

• Resist the urge to review the work straight away. Come back to it later with fresh eyes.
• Say the session is finished, out loud if you can. It marks the boundary.
• Look out of a window for thirty seconds. Your eyes have been at one distance for a while.

4What to put on

white noise — Flat across all frequencies and very effective at covering speech. Some people find it harsh after an hour; keep the volume low.