Focus session · coding · 50 min
50-minute coding session with a fan or air conditioner and a timer, when you only have a few minutes
Sit down, press start, and work through the problem for 50 minutes. Fifty minutes, the length of a therapy hour, with ten minutes off afterwards.
50:00
Press start. The timer keeps time so you do not have to look at a clock.
Unclench your jaw. You were probably holding it without noticing. A few minutes is the whole requirement. No preamble. We start with the body.
1 Before you start
- Decide now what you will do when the timer ends. Otherwise the decision will eat the first five minutes.
- Let go of the version of this task you imagined doing perfectly.
- Turn off notifications for the next block, not just to silent.
- Accept that the first five minutes will feel like wading. Wading counts.
- Go to the toilet first. It sounds trivial until you are mid-sentence.
2 While the timer runs
- If your attention keeps sliding, shorten the next block rather than abandoning this one.
- 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.
- When the timer feels too long, look at it less. The clock is not the task.
3 When it ends
- Do not immediately open the thing you were avoiding. Give the block a proper end.
- Decide whether the next block is the same task or a different one. Do not drift into it.
- Have a drink of water before you check anything.
4What to put on
a fan or air conditioner — A constant mechanical hum with no variation. The lack of change is the point — nothing in it asks for your attention.
This page is a tool, not a course. Nothing is tracked, nothing is saved, and nobody is told whether you finished.