Focus session · practising an instrument · 90 min
A 90-minute block for practising an instrument, with vinyl crackle, when you cannot concentrate on anything else
A single 90-minute block for practising an instrument — slowly, with the metronome.
90:00
Press start. The timer keeps time so you do not have to look at a clock.
Notice the temperature of the air on the backs of your hands. When concentration is gone, work with what is left. No preamble. We start with the body.
1 Before you start
- Dim the screen slightly. Bright screens make long sessions harder than they need to be.
- Remember that motivation usually arrives after starting, not before.
- Put the thing you keep reaching for out of arm's reach.
- Give yourself permission to stop when the timer ends, even mid-sentence.
- Write down the one thing you are going to do, in a single sentence, before you start.
2 While the timer runs
- If you feel restless, change your posture rather than your task.
- Notice the moment your hand moves toward your phone. That moment is the whole skill.
- If the task suddenly feels impossible, make it smaller rather than stopping. One paragraph. One function. One row.
- If you are stuck, say the problem out loud. It changes what you can see.
3 When it ends
- Decide whether the next block is the same task or a different one. Do not drift into it.
- Look out of a window for thirty seconds. Your eyes have been at one distance for a while.
- Write down the question you could not answer, so it has somewhere to live.
4What to put on
vinyl crackle — A thin layer of surface noise over nothing much. Just enough texture to stop the room feeling empty.
This page is a tool, not a course. Nothing is tracked, nothing is saved, and nobody is told whether you finished.