Focus session · research · 90 min
90-minute focus block for research — café murmur, before you go back to something hard
A timer, a short prep list, and 90 minutes to follow one thread.
90:00
Press start. The timer keeps time so you do not have to look at a clock.
Put both feet flat on the floor and let them take some of the weight. Five minutes here is cheaper than an hour of grinding. We'll go through it in order, without much decoration.
1 Before you start
- Go to the toilet first. It sounds trivial until you are mid-sentence.
- Tell yourself the goal is time spent, not output produced.
- Set the timer where you can see it, or where you can deliberately not see it.
- 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 the task suddenly feels impossible, make it smaller rather than stopping. One paragraph. One function. One row.
- If you are bored, the boredom is usually the last thing before something clicks.
- When you catch yourself re-reading the same sentence, stop and write down what you were looking for.
- The first urge to stop usually arrives early. Sit through it once and the second one is quieter.
3 When it ends
- Stand up and move for at least two minutes. The break is part of the method, not a reward.
- Write down the question you could not answer, so it has somewhere to live.
- Resist the urge to review the work straight away. Come back to it later with fresh eyes.
4What to put on
café murmur — The blur of other people talking, with none of the words close enough to follow. Some people concentrate better with a low level of company.
This page is a tool, not a course. Nothing is tracked, nothing is saved, and nobody is told whether you finished.