50-minute focus session for practising an instrument with a stream, when you cannot concentrate on anything else

1 Before you start

• Make sure your chair is at a height where your feet are flat on the floor.
• Remind yourself that you are allowed to produce something mediocre in the first pass.
• Get water now, so you do not have to get up in fifteen 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.

2 While the timer runs

• If a thought will not leave, give it one line on the page and return to the task.
• If you are bored, the boredom is usually the last thing before something clicks.
• When the timer feels too long, look at it less. The clock is not the task.
• Notice whether you are working or performing work. They look similar from the outside.

3 When it ends

• Look out of a window for thirty seconds. Your eyes have been at one distance for a while.
• Roll your shoulders and your neck before the next block.
• Do not immediately open the thing you were avoiding. Give the block a proper end.

4What to put on

a stream — Running water with small variation. Softer than rain and less repetitive than a fan.