45-minute practising an instrument session with distant traffic and a timer, after eating too much

1 Before you start

• Put your phone in another room, or in a drawer you cannot reach without standing up.
• Accept that the first five minutes will feel like wading. Wading counts.
• Decide now what you will do when the timer ends. Otherwise the decision will eat the first five minutes.
• Decide in advance that a bad sentence is still progress.
• Get water now, so you do not have to get up in fifteen minutes.

2 While the timer runs

• If you start tidying your desk, that is avoidance. Sit back down.
• If a thought will not leave, give it one line on the page and return to the task.
• Notice the moment your hand moves toward your phone. That moment is the whole skill.
• If you feel the urge to check something, write it on the paper beside you and keep going. Deal with the list afterwards.

3 When it ends

• If it went badly, note one thing that worked anyway. There is usually one.
• Write down the question you could not answer, so it has somewhere to live.
• Have a drink of water before you check anything.

4What to put on

distant traffic — A low continuous wash from a road you are not on. Familiar and easy to stop hearing.