Notes on Restoring Focus

The attention audit

Before you can fix focus, you have to see where it goes. I spent one week tracking every context switch - not with an app, just a tally mark in a notebook every time I shifted from one thing to another.

The results were embarrassing. I averaged 47 context switches per work day. Many were legitimate (meetings, questions from reports). Many were not (checking email "just in case," opening Twitter for no reason, clicking notifications that could wait).

The audit revealed a pattern: I wasn't being interrupted. I was interrupting myself. The enemy wasn't external demands. It was internal restlessness.

The restlessness underneath

Why do we interrupt ourselves? For me, it came down to three things:

• Discomfort avoidance: Hard problems feel bad. Checking email feels easy. The brain routes to easy.
• Completion addiction: Notifications offer tiny hits of "done." Deep work offers nothing for hours.
• Identity anxiety: If I'm not responsive, am I still important? If I'm not informed, am I still relevant?

The tools weren't the problem. The tools exploited tendencies that were already there. Blocking Twitter doesn't fix the restlessness. It just redirects it.

Systems that helped

I tried a lot of things. These are the ones that stuck:

Morning pages

Three pages of longhand writing first thing in the morning. Not journaling - just dumping whatever's in my head. The practice clears mental cache. On days I skip it, the restlessness is worse.

One thing before email

I don't open email or Slack until I've completed one meaningful task. Usually 60-90 minutes of writing or deep work. The rule is simple enough to follow and transformative enough to matter.

Visible timers

A physical timer on my desk, set for 50 minutes. When it's running, I don't switch. The visibility matters - it's a commitment I can see. When I feel the urge to check something, I look at the timer and wait.

Shutdown ritual

A specific sequence at the end of each work day: review tomorrow's calendar, write down the one most important task, close all tabs, say "shutdown complete" out loud. The ritual creates a boundary. Without it, work bleeds into evening and rest never happens.

Weekly review

Thirty minutes each Friday to ask: What did I actually accomplish? Where did focus break down? What do I want to protect next week? The review catches drift before it becomes habit.

Systems that didn't help

• App blockers alone: I just used my phone instead, or found workarounds.
• Willpower: Deciding to focus more doesn't work. The decision fades by 10am.
• Productivity porn: Reading about focus is not focusing. I spent too long here.
• Total disconnection: Going offline for days felt good but wasn't sustainable.

The role of rest

I used to think focus was about pushing harder. It's actually about recovering better. The best focus sessions came after genuine rest - not scrolling-on-the-couch rest, but walks, sleep, time with no agenda.

Attention is a renewable resource, but only if you let it renew. Running on empty doesn't produce deep work. It produces the appearance of work while your brain quietly checks out.

What I'm still working on

Focus isn't a problem you solve. It's a practice you maintain. I'm still working on:

• Saying no to meetings that could be async
• Resisting the urge to respond immediately to everything
• Accepting that some days will be scattered and that's okay
• Finding focus as a parent with unpredictable interruptions

The deeper question

Underneath all the tactics is a harder question: What do I want to focus on? It's easy to optimize for productivity without asking whether the work matters. I've had weeks of excellent focus on things that, in retrospect, weren't worth the attention.

Focus is a tool. Like any tool, its value depends on what you point it at. The systems help. But they only help if you've first decided what deserves your full attention - and what doesn't.

A note for fellow parents

Most focus advice assumes uninterrupted hours that don't exist when you have kids. I've had to make peace with shorter blocks, more flexibility, and the reality that some seasons are just harder than others. The goal isn't perfection. It's protecting what you can, when you can, without guilt about the rest.