This lab is different from the others. Nobody goes into a corridor, nothing is timed out loud, and there is no pooling on the board unless people want it. It’s a quiet room with a template and fifty minutes.
Before the lab#
Bring your phone, and your week 6 ledger if you kept one. The ledger’s most expensive rows are good candidates for your runbook’s early signs.
The room#
Lights lower than usual; no background music; seats facing the walls as well as the middle. Headphones are welcome. If you’d rather write your runbook somewhere else entirely, tell Tamsin at the start and come back at 0:44 for the last section, or don’t. The spec is the same either way.
Run sheet#
Times below run from the 14:05 start; finish at 14:55.
| Time | What happens |
|---|---|
| 0:00–0:05 | The six runbook sections, on the screen. That’s the whole briefing. |
| 0:05–0:22 | Write the runbook. Early signs first, while you can still remember what they felt like. Then what gets dropped, in order. The reduced path below is available throughout. |
| 0:22–0:30 | Write the messages. Tutor, friends, the person you live with, or whoever your version of those is. Save three, or one on the reduced path. Send one to yourself and read it as if it had just arrived. |
| 0:30–0:44 | Plan the break. Use detachment, relaxation, mastery and control as prompts. Mark fixed obligations, then a period you can protect. On the reduced path, name one commitment to review. |
| 0:44–0:50 | Optional: in pairs, swap one message and one “what gets dropped” item. Otherwise use the time to save your work and name the next section to return to. |
Leave some time unallocated#
A break that starts with a list of catch-up tasks is a week 8 that started early. Try leaving the first day empty. If work, care or another obligation makes that impossible, record the constraint and protect a smaller period if you can. A timetable cannot cancel a shift on your behalf.
If writing the runbook is hard today#
Write one line for early signs, “today, writing a runbook was hard”, and one message. Test-send it to yourself. Name one commitment to review and the next runbook section you will return to when there is room. That meets the reduced path in the spec; no explanation to the room is required. A partial runbook written this week is worth more than a complete one that never gets started.
What leaves the room#
A runbook, saved messages and a break plan, or the reduced version above. Your week 7 Field Journal entry is still due Sunday 11 April, 23:59. Nothing is due during the break. The first entry after it is due Sunday 2 May, 23:59. All the dates are on the journal page.