90-minute focus session for practising an instrument with white noise, if you have five quiet minutes

1 Before you start

• Get water now, so you do not have to get up in fifteen minutes.
• Expect to want to stop at about the eight-minute mark. That is normal and it passes.
• Dim the screen slightly. Bright screens make long sessions harder than they need to be.
• Decide that today's session does not have to be good. It has to happen.
• Decide what counts as done for this block. "Two pages" is better than "make progress".

2 While the timer runs

• If you feel the urge to check something, write it on the paper beside you and keep going. Deal with the list afterwards.
• If nothing is working, write badly on purpose for two minutes.
• When the timer feels too long, look at it less. The clock is not the task.
• If you feel restless, change your posture rather than your task.

3 When it ends

• Decide whether the next block is the same task or a different one. Do not drift into it.
• Take the break away from the screen, even if it is just the other side of the room.
• Write down the question you could not answer, so it has somewhere to live.

4What to put on

white noise — Flat across all frequencies and very effective at covering speech. Some people find it harsh after an hour; keep the volume low.