50-minute focus block for brainstorming — a fireplace, if you have five quiet minutes

1 Before you start

• Dim the screen slightly. Bright screens make long sessions harder than they need to be.
• 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.
• Close the door, or put headphones on, whichever signals "working" to the people around you.

2 While the timer runs

• When you get an idea for something else, park it. Do not follow it.
• If nothing is working, write badly on purpose for two minutes.
• When you notice you have drifted, do not restart the block. Just come back and carry on counting from where the timer is.
• It is fine to stare at the wall for a minute. That is often where the answer is.

3 When it ends

• Write down the question you could not answer, so it has somewhere to live.
• Roll your shoulders and your neck before the next block.
• If it went badly, note one thing that worked anyway. There is usually one.

4What to put on

a fireplace — Crackles and a low roar underneath. Warm, irregular, and undemanding.