Focus session · admin and email · 50 min
50-minute focus session for admin and email with a stream, when you are cold and want to be warm
50 minutes on admin and email — in one pass, without opening new tabs. 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.
Your breathing doesn't have to change yet. Let it be whatever size it currently is. Get a blanket first. Being cold defeats the point. We'll go through it in order, without much decoration.
1 Before you start
- Put your phone in another room, or in a drawer you cannot reach without standing up.
- Plan to leave the last two minutes for writing down where to pick up next time.
- Close every tab that is not needed for this one task. Not minimised — closed.
- Accept that the first five minutes will feel like wading. Wading counts.
- Have a piece of paper beside you for the thoughts that will try to interrupt.
2 While the timer runs
- If a thought will not leave, give it one line on the page and return to the task.
- Notice whether you are working or performing work. They look similar from the outside.
- If the task suddenly feels impossible, make it smaller rather than stopping. One paragraph. One function. One row.
- If nothing is working, write badly on purpose for two minutes.
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.
- Look out of a window for thirty seconds. Your eyes have been at one distance for a while.
4What to put on
a stream — Running water with small variation. Softer than rain and less repetitive than a fan.
This page is a tool, not a course. Nothing is tracked, nothing is saved, and nobody is told whether you finished.