50-minute focus block for applications and forms — white noise, before you go back to something hard

1 Before you start

• Decide now what you will do when the timer ends. Otherwise the decision will eat the first five minutes.
• Lower the bar until starting feels almost silly, then start.
• Dim the screen slightly. Bright screens make long sessions harder than they need to be.
• Remember that motivation usually arrives after starting, not before.
• Clear the surface in front of you down to the thing you are working on.

2 While the timer runs

• If nothing is working, write badly on purpose for two minutes.
• Notice the moment your hand moves toward your phone. That moment is the whole skill.
• When you catch yourself re-reading the same sentence, stop and write down what you were looking for.
• If a thought will not leave, give it one line on the page and return to the task.

3 When it ends

• Write down the question you could not answer, so it has somewhere to live.
• Note what you actually got done, not what you meant to get done.
• Leave the file open if you are coming back. Closing it makes restarting harder.

4What to put on

white noise — Flat across all frequencies and very effective at covering speech. Some people find it harsh after an hour; keep the volume low.