You knew what you were going to do.That was never the problem.
You sat down to write the proposal.
You meant it.
Then you checked something. Followed a thought. Opened something next to it, and then something next to that.
An hour later you came back.
You don't know when you left.
Nothing tells you when you go.
There is no moment where staying is a choice you get to make. You are doing the thing, and then later you are not doing the thing, and the part in between is simply missing.
You have tried things. Some of them worked for a while.
They have the same problem. You have to remember to use them, and remembering is the thing that just failed.
A timer measures time. It runs the same whether you were there or not.
Minds wander. Yours, mine, everyone's.
Nothing has gone wrong.
The problem is what happens when it keeps pulling you away from the thing you chose.
So this is not about wandering less. It is about noticing sooner.
Your days are mostly made of what you paid attention to. If you didn't choose that, something else did.
That's the whole thing.
You decide what you're doing. You start. Tic asks, every so often. You answer.
Two seconds, then you're back.
It doesn't care what you're doing. Only that you chose it.
Decide. Drift. Return.
If you drifted, you tap “I drifted.”
The screen closes.
No advice. No encouragement. Nothing to read.
You noticed. You said so. You're back. Anything else would just be Tic talking about itself.
On your wrist it's the same two taps, and easier to feel than to swipe away without looking.
There is nothing to learn here.
You decide. You drift. You notice. You come back.
And again. And again. And again.
The coming back is the practice.
This part is difficult.
Some days you will drift the whole session.
Some days Tic will ask and you will realise you have been gone ten minutes.
Some days you will not want to come back.
There will be days you stop noticing the question at all.
That is all normal. The practice is the return, not the staying.
After a while, something small happens.
You feel yourself go, and you come back on your own. Then Tic asks, and you are already there.
You notice before Tic does.
That's it. That's what this is for.
What Tic will never do.
- No score. No streak. Nothing to keep up.
- No advice, no encouragement, no reports.
- No account. Nothing leaves your phone.
- Ignore it twice and it stops.
Fourteen days.One question, a few times a day.
Tic isn't finished. The first group is small, and the only thing asked of you is that you keep it switched on for two weeks and say what happened.
No account. One email when it opens.