Focus session · design work · 90 min

A 90-minute block for design work, with a fireplace, when you are somewhere unfamiliar

A single 90-minute block for design work — rough versions first.

90:00

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

Let your eyes soften. Not closed, just less busy. It travels well. Hotels, spare rooms, other people’s sofas. This works better when you don't overthink it.

1 Before you start

Take one slow breath before you press start, so the session has a beginning.
Decide in advance that a bad sentence is still progress.
Go to the toilet first. It sounds trivial until you are mid-sentence.
If you are dreading it, make the first action physical: open the file, sharpen the pencil.
Turn off notifications for the next block, not just to silent.

2 While the timer runs

When you finish a piece, pause for three seconds before starting the next. It keeps the pace honest.
When you have drifted for the fifth time, that is still four returns. Keep going.
If you feel the urge to check something, write it on the paper beside you and keep going. Deal with the list afterwards.
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.
Decide whether the next block is the same task or a different one. Do not drift into it.
Leave the desk tidier than you found it. Two minutes now saves ten later.

4What to put on

a fireplace — Crackles and a low roar underneath. Warm, irregular, and undemanding.

This page is a tool, not a course. Nothing is tracked, nothing is saved, and nobody is told whether you finished.

If this block does not fit, try A 90-minute block for studying, with a fireplace, before something difficult, Focus session for language practice: 25 minutes, a library, when you are not sure this will work or 50-minute focus block for drawing — forest at dusk, on a day that started badly.