50-minute focus block for decluttering — rain on a window, when you are short on time

1 Before you start

• Clear the surface in front of you down to the thing you are working on.
• Accept that the first five minutes will feel like wading. Wading counts.
• Put the thing you keep reaching for out of arm's reach.
• 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 nothing is working, write badly on purpose for two minutes.
• If you start tidying your desk, that is avoidance. Sit back down.
• If the task suddenly feels impossible, make it smaller rather than stopping. One paragraph. One function. One row.
• 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

• Look out of a window for thirty seconds. Your eyes have been at one distance for a while.
• Decide whether the next block is the same task or a different one. Do not drift into it.
• Say the session is finished, out loud if you can. It marks the boundary.

4What to put on

rain on a window — Steady rain is broadband noise with a slow natural rhythm. It masks speech and keyboard clatter without being interesting enough to listen to.