90-minute problem solving session with a fan or air conditioner and a timer, when nothing else has worked today

1 Before you start

• Get water now, so you do not have to get up in fifteen minutes.
• Give yourself permission to stop when the timer ends, even mid-sentence.
• Put your phone in another room, or in a drawer you cannot reach without standing up.
• Decide that today's session does not have to be good. It has to happen.
• Dim the screen slightly. Bright screens make long sessions harder than they need to be.

2 While the timer runs

• If a thought will not leave, give it one line on the page and return to the task.
• If you are suddenly sleepy, stand up for ten seconds and sit back down.
• When you get an idea for something else, park it. Do not follow it.
• If you start tidying your desk, that is avoidance. Sit back down.

3 When it ends

• Write down the question you could not answer, so it has somewhere to live.
• Roll your shoulders and your neck before the next block.
• Decide whether the next block is the same task or a different one. Do not drift into it.

4What to put on

a fan or air conditioner — A constant mechanical hum with no variation. The lack of change is the point — nothing in it asks for your attention.