45-minute focus session for organizing your wardrobe

1 Before you start

• Go to the toilet first. It sounds trivial until you are mid-sentence.
• Remember that motivation usually arrives after starting, not before.
• Set the timer where you can see it, or where you can deliberately not see it.
• Lower the bar until starting feels almost silly, then start.
• Get water now, so you do not have to get up in fifteen minutes.

2 While the timer runs

• 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.
• When you notice you have drifted, do not restart the block. Just come back and carry on counting from where the timer is.
• If nothing is working, write badly on purpose for two minutes.

3 When it ends

• Roll your shoulders and your neck before the next block.
• Resist the urge to review the work straight away. Come back to it later with fresh eyes.
• Take the break away from the screen, even if it is just the other side of the room.

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.