45-minute focus session for data work with a library, if you have five quiet minutes

1 Before you start

• Get water now, so you do not have to get up in fifteen minutes.
• Remind yourself that you are allowed to produce something mediocre in the first pass.
• Go to the toilet first. It sounds trivial until you are mid-sentence.
• Choose one question to answer in this block, rather than a whole subject to cover.
• Dim the screen slightly. Bright screens make long sessions harder than they need to be.

2 While the timer runs

• If you are suddenly sleepy, stand up for ten seconds and sit back down.
• The first urge to stop usually arrives early. Sit through it once and the second one is quieter.
• If a thought will not leave, give it one line on the page and return to the task.
• If the task suddenly feels impossible, make it smaller rather than stopping. One paragraph. One function. One row.

3 When it ends

• Write down the question you could not answer, so it has somewhere to live.
• Decide whether the next block is the same task or a different one. Do not drift into it.
• Say the session is finished, out loud if you can. It marks the boundary.

4What to put on

a library — Almost nothing: distant footsteps, a chair, a page turning. Useful if you want the feeling of a room where work is normal.