Focus session · planning · 90 min

90-minute focus session for planning with a stream, when you are not sure this will work

90 minutes on planning — on paper, so you can see it. One full ultradian cycle, for work that needs a long runway.

90:00

Press start. The timer keeps time so you do not have to look at a clock.

Part of you is still in the last conversation you had. That's fine. It can sit here too. Not being sure it will work is a perfectly good reason to try it once. No preamble. We start with the body.

1 Before you start

  • Put the thing you keep reaching for out of arm's reach.
  • Remind yourself that you are allowed to produce something mediocre in the first pass.
  • Take one slow breath before you press start, so the session has a beginning.
  • Remember that motivation usually arrives after starting, not before.
  • Decide now what you will do when the timer ends. Otherwise the decision will eat the first five minutes.

2 While the timer runs

  • 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.
  • When the timer feels too long, look at it less. The clock is not the task.
  • Notice the moment your hand moves toward your phone. That moment is the whole skill.

3 When it ends

  • Write down the question you could not answer, so it has somewhere to live.
  • Put the notes you made where you will find them next time.
  • 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.