Focus session · research · 90 min
90-minute focus session for research with rain on a window, when you are too tired to try hard
90 minutes on research — with a note file open beside you. 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.
If you're lying down, let the mattress hold all of you. You can stop holding yourself up. Too tired to try hard is exactly the right amount of tired for this. Straight through, at a normal pace.
1 Before you start
- Decide now what you will do when the timer ends. Otherwise the decision will eat the first five minutes.
- Promise yourself you will not check anything until the timer ends, including "just quickly".
- Make sure your chair is at a height where your feet are flat on the floor.
- Choose one question to answer in this block, rather than a whole subject to cover.
- Put your phone in another room, or in a drawer you cannot reach without standing up.
2 While the timer runs
- When you have drifted for the fifth time, that is still four returns. Keep going.
- Notice the moment your hand moves toward your phone. That moment is the whole skill.
- If a thought will not leave, give it one line on the page and return to the task.
- When you notice you have drifted, do not restart the block. Just come back and carry on counting from where the timer is.
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.
- Put the notes you made where you will find them next time.
4What to put on
rain on a window — Steady rain is broadband noise with a slow natural rhythm. It masks speech and keyboard clatter without being interesting enough to listen to.
This page is a tool, not a course. Nothing is tracked, nothing is saved, and nobody is told whether you finished.