The 90-Minute Deep Work Block
One protected block of undistracted work compounds faster than any productivity system. This is the exact sequence I run every morning — setup, execution, and shutdown — so the block happens by default instead of by heroics.
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Choose the one thing the night before
The block dies in the first five minutes if you spend them deciding what to work on. Before closing your laptop the previous evening, write a single sentence: tomorrow's block produces X. One deliverable, defined, no alternatives.
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Build the airlock
Phone in another room — not face down, another room. Every chat app, mail tab, and notification source closed. The browser gets exactly the tabs the task needs. You are not resisting distraction during the block; you are making it physically inconvenient before it starts.
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Open with a two-minute ramp
Don't start with the hard part. Re-read yesterday's last paragraph, the failing test, the open sketch. Momentum is easier to continue than to create — give your brain a thread to pull instead of a wall to climb.
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Work in silence, park every detour
No music with lyrics, no 'quick checks'. When an unrelated thought lands — and it will, every few minutes at first — write it on a paper parking list and return. The list converts open loops into closed ones without leaving the block.
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Stop at 90, even mid-sentence
Past 90 minutes, quality decays and tomorrow's appetite gets eaten. Stop while it still feels easy — ideally mid-flow. An unfinished sentence is tomorrow's two-minute ramp.
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Close the loop
Two minutes of shutdown: note what the block produced, write the one sentence for tomorrow's block, then walk — five minutes, no phone. The walk is when the next insight usually arrives; be reachable by it.