Focus session · admin and email · 50 min
Deep work timer: 50 minutes of admin and email (a fireplace), when you have more time than usual
One block of admin and email with a fireplace underneath. Fifty minutes, the length of a therapy hour, with ten minutes off afterwards.
Press start. The timer keeps time so you do not have to look at a clock.
Part of you is still in the last conversation you had. That's fine. It can sit here too. This is the longer version, for a day with some slack in it. Follow the instructions and let the rest look after itself.
1 Before you start
- Get water now, so you do not have to get up in fifteen minutes.
- Promise yourself you will not check anything until the timer ends, including "just quickly".
- Close every tab that is not needed for this one task. Not minimised — closed.
- Choose one question to answer in this block, rather than a whole subject to cover.
- Dim the screen slightly. Bright screens make long sessions harder than they need to be.
2 While the timer runs
- If your attention keeps sliding, shorten the next block rather than abandoning this one.
- If you are stuck, say the problem out loud. It changes what you can see.
- Notice the moment your hand moves toward your phone. That moment is the whole skill.
- When you get an idea for something else, park it. Do not follow it.
3 When it ends
- Decide whether the next block is the same task or a different one. Do not drift into it.
- Put the notes you made where you will find them next time.
- Do not immediately open the thing you were avoiding. Give the block a proper end.
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 25-minute block for portfolio work, with a washing machine, if you are sceptical about all of this, 90-minute focus block for brainstorming — distant traffic, before you go back to something hard or 25-minute focus session for applications and forms with white noise, before something difficult.