Focus session for portfolio work: 25 minutes, vinyl crackle, when you are at home and cannot settle

1 Before you start

• Close every tab that is not needed for this one task. Not minimised — closed.
• Accept that the first five minutes will feel like wading. Wading counts.
• Go to the toilet first. It sounds trivial until you are mid-sentence.
• Decide that today's session does not have to be good. It has to happen.
• Decide now what you will do when the timer ends. Otherwise the decision will eat the first five minutes.

2 While the timer runs

• The first urge to stop usually arrives early. Sit through it once and the second one is quieter.
• If you feel restless, change your posture rather than your task.
• When the timer feels too long, look at it less. The clock is not the task.
• If you start tidying your desk, that is avoidance. Sit back down.

3 When it ends

• Resist the urge to review the work straight away. Come back to it later with fresh eyes.
• Look out of a window for thirty seconds. Your eyes have been at one distance for a while.
• Note what you actually got done, not what you meant to get done.

4What to put on

vinyl crackle — A thin layer of surface noise over nothing much. Just enough texture to stop the room feeling empty.