Make Your Focus Work for You (fast, Practical guardrails)
Think like a systems designer and add constraints. Use these as “defaults,” not willpower tests.
1) Pre-flight (2 minutes)
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One-sentence mission: “Ship a draft of X that covers A/B/C.”
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Definition of done: 3–5 checkboxes max. Include a hard stop (“stop when tests pass + notes written”).
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Rabbit-hole lot: Title a scratch note “Not today” to park perfectionist urges.
2) A Timer that Makes You Move
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Place the timer away from your desk (phone/kitchen timer on a shelf).
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Work in 50–10 or 40–7 blocks. Rule: when it rings, you must physically stand. Standing breaks the trance. Then choose: resume or stop.
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Hide on-screen clocks to kill the compulsion to time-scan; let the external timer be the only time signal.
3) Anti-perfectionism Scripts (use Whichever fits)
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Two-pass rule: Pass 1 = ugly but complete. Pass 2 = fix the top 3 defects only. Stop.
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Three-strike detour: If you’ve tried a subproblem 3 ways or for 10 minutes without traction, log it in “Not today,” write the next best approximation, move on.
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Good-enough bar: Before you start polishing, say out loud: “Would Future Me in 48 hours notice this?” If not, park it.
4) Landing Checklist (3 minutes)
Close the loop so your brain lets go.
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Save/commit, export a snapshot, write the very next step you’d do tomorrow, and jot how long the block took vs. planned.
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One line review: “What made this longer?” (e.g., “font kerning rabbit hole,” “API edge case”). That’s your bug report for the process, not your worth.
5) Body Maintenance with Zero Friction
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Put water within reach and pre-stage a snack.
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Tie bio-breaks to the timer: “When it rings, I stand and pee.” Silly, effective.
For Code & Design Specifically (your Superpower terrain)
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Coding: Start with a spike (throwaway prototype) capped at 60–90 minutes, then a stabilize pass. Different branches. Don’t polish in the spike branch.
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Viz/design: Work in level-of-detail layers: layout → hierarchy → typography/colors → micro-polish. Freeze a PNG at each layer to reduce the urge to “just nudge” forever.
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Bugs and micro-issues: Open a “Gripes.md” in the repo/doc. Logging them reduces Zeigarnik itch without fixing them now.
The “why Do I Feel Worthless after?” Piece
You didn’t waste a day—you lost a negotiation with your environment. Treat that feeling like a false alarm. Two quick reframes:
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Outcome ledger: Each session, record one concrete artifact shipped (PR link, draft link, exported PNG). Evidence beats vibes.
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Self-talk swap: Replace “I wasted the day” with “My constraints were too weak; I’ll adjust two variables next time.” Engineers iterate; that’s what you’re doing.
Tiny Experiment for Your next Session (today if possible)
- Write a one-sentence mission i.e. “Ship a draft of X that covers A/B/C.” + 4-box “done” list, inlcuding a hard stop for the last task, i.e. “stop when tests pass + notes written”“.
- Set a physical 45-minute timer away from your desk.
- When it rings, stand, drink water, decide consciously: one more block or land the plane.
- End with a 3-minute landing checklist and a snapshot.
If this pattern regularly hijacks sleep, energy, or relationships, it’s worth chatting with a clinician about attention regulation—not to pathologize you, but to get more tools.
I can also set up gentle break reminders or a 50–10 cycle cue for your work hours so you don’t have to think about it. Or we can turn this into a one-page “flight plan” you keep by your monitor.