A 45-minute block for studying, with a washing machine, after a difficult conversation

1 Before you start

• Get water now, so you do not have to get up in fifteen minutes.
• Remember that motivation usually arrives after starting, not before.
• Take one slow breath before you press start, so the session has a beginning.
• Let go of the version of this task you imagined doing perfectly.
• 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 suddenly sleepy, stand up for ten seconds and sit back down.
• If your attention keeps sliding, shorten the next block rather than abandoning this one.
• When you notice you have drifted, do not restart the block. Just come back and carry on counting from where the timer is.
• Notice whether you are working or performing work. They look similar from the outside.

3 When it ends

• Roll your shoulders and your neck before the next block.
• Leave the desk tidier than you found it. Two minutes now saves ten later.
• Stand up and move for at least two minutes. The break is part of the method, not a reward.

4What to put on

a washing machine — Domestic, mechanical, and oddly steadying. The sound of something else being dealt with.