Deep work timer: 45 minutes of admin and email (forest at dusk), after eating too much

1 Before you start

• Write down the one thing you are going to do, in a single sentence, before you start.
• Plan to leave the last two minutes for writing down where to pick up next time.
• Decide now what you will do when the timer ends. Otherwise the decision will eat the first five minutes.
• Decide that today's session does not have to be good. It has to happen.
• Decide what counts as done for this block. "Two pages" is better than "make progress".

2 While the timer runs

• If you feel the urge to check something, write it on the paper beside you and keep going. Deal with the list afterwards.
• If you start tidying your desk, that is avoidance. Sit back down.
• When you notice you have drifted, do not restart the block. Just come back and carry on counting from where the timer is.
• If nothing is working, write badly on purpose for two minutes.

3 When it ends

• Do not immediately open the thing you were avoiding. Give the block a proper end.
• Put the notes you made where you will find them next time.
• Roll your shoulders and your neck before the next block.

4What to put on

forest at dusk — Birds settling, leaves moving, nothing sudden. It works because it sounds like a place you can safely ignore.