45-minute focus block for studying — brown noise, when you want to be left alone

1 Before you start

• Turn off notifications for the next block, not just to silent.
• Promise yourself you will not check anything until the timer ends, including "just quickly".
• Get water now, so you do not have to get up in fifteen minutes.
• Expect to want to stop at about the eight-minute mark. That is normal and it passes.
• Go to the toilet first. It sounds trivial until you are mid-sentence.

2 While the timer runs

• When you finish a piece, pause for three seconds before starting the next. It keeps the pace honest.
• If you start tidying your desk, that is avoidance. Sit back down.
• When you have drifted for the fifth time, that is still four returns. Keep going.
• The first urge to stop usually arrives early. Sit through it once and the second one is quieter.

3 When it ends

• Leave the file open if you are coming back. Closing it makes restarting harder.
• Decide whether the next block is the same task or a different one. Do not drift into it.
• Look out of a window for thirty seconds. Your eyes have been at one distance for a while.

4What to put on

brown noise — Lower and softer than white noise, closer to a waterfall heard from a distance. Good if white noise feels too hissy.