Focus session for research: 90 minutes, birds at dawn, when the day has been loud

1 Before you start

• Close the door, or put headphones on, whichever signals "working" to the people around you.
• Choose one question to answer in this block, rather than a whole subject to cover.
• Decide what counts as done for this block. "Two pages" is better than "make progress".
• Promise yourself you will not check anything until the timer ends, including "just quickly".
• Get water now, so you do not have to get up in fifteen minutes.

2 While the timer runs

• If nothing is working, write badly on purpose for two minutes.
• If you are stuck, say the problem out loud. It changes what you can see.
• If the task suddenly feels impossible, make it smaller rather than stopping. One paragraph. One function. One row.
• 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

• Say the session is finished, out loud if you can. It marks the boundary.
• Leave the file open if you are coming back. Closing it makes restarting harder.
• Write down the question you could not answer, so it has somewhere to live.

4What to put on

birds at dawn — Bright but not sharp. Better for early sessions than for late ones.