90-minute focus session for admin and email with café murmur, when you are at home and cannot settle

1 Before you start

• Set the timer where you can see it, or where you can deliberately not see it.
• Remember that motivation usually arrives after starting, not before.
• Get water now, so you do not have to get up in fifteen minutes.
• Decide what you will do if you get stuck: write the problem out, then move on.
• Take one slow breath before you press start, so the session has a beginning.

2 While the timer runs

• Notice the moment your hand moves toward your phone. That moment is the whole skill.
• When you get an idea for something else, park it. Do not follow it.
• If you are bored, the boredom is usually the last thing before something clicks.
• If the task suddenly feels impossible, make it smaller rather than stopping. One paragraph. One function. One row.

3 When it ends

• Leave the file open if you are coming back. Closing it makes restarting harder.
• Say the session is finished, out loud if you can. It marks the boundary.
• Look out of a window for thirty seconds. Your eyes have been at one distance for a while.

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.