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Focus session · planning · 90 min

Deep work timer: 90 minutes of planning (plain quiet), if you have five quiet minutes

One block of planning with plain quiet underneath. One full ultradian cycle, for work that needs a long runway.

90:00

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

Find one place in your body that already feels fine. Use that as the starting point. Five quiet minutes is enough. Ten is generous. Follow the instructions and let the rest look after itself.

1 Before you start

  • Turn off notifications for the next block, not just to silent.
  • Decide what you will do if you get stuck: write the problem out, then move on.
  • Decide now what you will do when the timer ends. Otherwise the decision will eat the first five minutes.
  • Tell yourself the goal is time spent, not output produced.
  • Close every tab that is not needed for this one task. Not minimised — closed.

2 While the timer runs

  • Notice whether you are working or performing work. They look similar from the outside.
  • When you notice you have drifted, do not restart the block. Just come back and carry on counting from where the timer is.
  • When the timer feels too long, look at it less. The clock is not the task.
  • If you feel the urge to check something, write it on the paper beside you and keep going. Deal with the list afterwards.

3 When it ends

  • Say the session is finished, out loud if you can. It marks the boundary.
  • Have a drink of water before you check anything.
  • Do not immediately open the thing you were avoiding. Give the block a proper end.

4What to put on

plain quiet — No added sound at all. If you have a quiet room, that is usually better than any recording of one.

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 45-minute focus session for research with a stream, when you are somewhere noisy, 45-minute brainstorming session with white noise and a timer, before you go back to something hard or Deep work timer: 50 minutes of writing (plain quiet), when you have been meaning to start.