Focus session for admin and email: 50 minutes, a library, when you are short on time

1 Before you start

• Make sure your chair is at a height where your feet are flat on the floor.
• Give yourself permission to stop when the timer ends, even mid-sentence.
• Put your phone in another room, or in a drawer you cannot reach without standing up.
• If you are dreading it, make the first action physical: open the file, sharpen the pencil.
• Close every tab that is not needed for this one task. Not minimised — closed.

2 While the timer runs

• When the timer feels too long, look at it less. The clock is not the task.
• If the task suddenly feels impossible, make it smaller rather than stopping. One paragraph. One function. One row.
• If nothing is working, write badly on purpose for two minutes.
• 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

• Roll your shoulders and your neck before the next block.
• Note what you actually got done, not what you meant to get done.
• Leave the desk tidier than you found it. Two minutes now saves ten later.

4What to put on

a library — Almost nothing: distant footsteps, a chair, a page turning. Useful if you want the feeling of a room where work is normal.