5 Minute Timer
Set for 5 minutes. Press start — it rings when the time is up.
This timer runs while the tab is open. If you need it to go off when your phone is in your pocket — that part needs the app.
Five minutes when you can’t start at all
Five minutes is below the threshold where your brain bothers to argue. An hour of paperwork is a decision; five minutes of it is not worth the negotiation, so the negotiation never happens.
This is why it works on the tasks you have been avoiding for weeks rather than the ones you simply have not got to yet. Avoidance is rarely about the work itself — it is about the size of the thing you have to agree to. Five minutes makes the thing small enough to agree to.
Set it, do the worst part, and let it ring. If you stop there, you have still done five minutes more than yesterday. If you carry on — and you usually will — the timer has already done its job.