Focus session · admin and email · 50 min
50-minute focus block for admin and email — plain quiet, if you are sceptical about all of this
A timer, a short prep list, and 50 minutes to clear the queue.
50:00
Press start. The timer keeps time so you do not have to look at a clock.
Rest your hands somewhere they don't have to do anything. Scepticism is welcome. You do not have to believe anything for this to work. Straight through, at a normal pace.
1 Before you start
- Close every tab that is not needed for this one task. Not minimised — closed.
- Promise yourself you will not check anything until the timer ends, including "just quickly".
- Set the timer where you can see it, or where you can deliberately not see it.
- Let go of the version of this task you imagined doing perfectly.
- Write down the one thing you are going to do, in a single sentence, before you start.
2 While the timer runs
- If you are bored, the boredom is usually the last thing before something clicks.
- 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 notice you have drifted, do not restart the block. Just come back and carry on counting from where the timer is.
3 When it ends
- Roll your shoulders and your neck before the next block.
- Write one line about where to start next time. Future you will be grateful.
- Look out of a window for thirty seconds. Your eyes have been at one distance for a while.
4What to put on
plain quiet — No added sound at all. If you have a quiet room, that is usually better than any recording of one.
This page is a tool, not a course. Nothing is tracked, nothing is saved, and nobody is told whether you finished.