50-minute practising an instrument session with a library and a timer, when you cannot concentrate on anything else

1 Before you start

• Put your phone in another room, or in a drawer you cannot reach without standing up.
• Give yourself permission to stop when the timer ends, even mid-sentence.
• Put the thing you keep reaching for out of arm's reach.
• Decide that today's session does not have to be good. It has to happen.
• Have a piece of paper beside you for the thoughts that will try to interrupt.

2 While the timer runs

• When you get an idea for something else, park it. Do not follow it.
• If you start tidying your desk, that is avoidance. Sit back down.
• If you are suddenly sleepy, stand up for ten seconds and sit back down.
• 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.
• Leave the desk tidier than you found it. Two minutes now saves ten later.

4What to put on

a library — Almost nothing: distant footsteps, a chair, a page turning. Useful if you want the feeling of a room where work is normal.