I've been working remotely or hybrid for a large chunk of the past decade.
From the little creative studio I used to run in central Leeds, to coworking spaces, coffee shops and, increasingly, my home office.
I love the freedom of it.
But freedom and focus aren't necessarily the same thing.
As someone with ADHD, my working days can sometimes exist at two completely opposite ends of the spectrum.
There are days when I become completely consumed by an idea. Everything clicks. Hours disappear. I forget about lunch. The outside world becomes an inconvenience and I feel almost unstoppable.
Then there are the other days.
I pick up my phone.
Put it down.
Open a tab.
Open another tab.
Check my email.
Remember something unrelated.
Pick up my phone again.
Suddenly it's lunchtime and I'm not entirely sure what I've actually done.
I haven't mastered this.
I'm definitely not a productivity guru, and I'm suspicious of anyone who claims to have discovered the perfect morning routine for every human being.
Different minds need different things.
But after 20 years of creative work, I've developed a few small habits that seem to make focusing from home considerably easier.
Some have science behind them.
Some are simply things I've discovered through years of trial, error and distraction.
Usually lots of distraction.
So here's a few ideas for you to consider.
Idea 1. Three things
I used to begin every morning with a fresh page in my notebook.
Then I'd write down everything I needed to do.
Projects.
Emails.
Meetings.
Decisions.
People to call.
Things I'd forgotten yesterday.
Things I might forget tomorrow.
By the time I'd finished creating my beautifully organised list, I'd often feel completely overwhelmed by it.
Then came the even more complicated task of deciding which order to do everything in.
I'd spend so much mental energy organising the work that I had considerably less energy left for actually doing it.
So I've stopped.
These days, I write down three things.
I ask myself:
If I could only accomplish three things today and still feel happy with the day, what would they be?
That's it.
It doesn't mean I only complete three tasks.
Answering an email might be part of finishing a larger project. One task might naturally contain five smaller actions. Meetings happen. Small pieces of admin get dealt with along the way.
But I don't need to turn all of them into individual promises to myself before I've even finished my morning coffee.
There's another reason I like working this way.
Research into task switching suggests that moving repeatedly between unfinished tasks can leave some of our attention behind on the previous task, something researcher Sophie Leroy calls attention residue.
In two experiments, Leroy found that people could struggle to fully disengage their attention from one task when moving onto another, and that this could affect performance on the next task.
For me, three priorities create a little less mental traffic.
Less planning.
Less switching.
More doing.
And if I only finish two?
Tomorrow exists.
Idea 2. Hang up the phone
This may be the most ridiculously simple change I've made.
I 3D printed a little wall-mounted holder for my phone.
It has a slot for the charging cable and lives on the wall outside my home office.
I've essentially spent money on modern technology and a 3D printer to recreate a landline telephone.
And I love it.
My phone now has a home.
At night, I put it there to charge rather than taking it into the bedroom.
In the morning, if the alarm goes off, I physically have to get out of bed to turn it off.
And during the working day, when I really need to concentrate, I'll hang it back on the wall.
The interesting part isn't that I can't get to my phone.
Of course I can.
It's about adding a tiny amount of friction. I've written more about why friction matters in a frictionless world — and why that's not always a bad thing.
Stand up.
Leave the office.
Walk to the wall.
Pick up phone.
Apparently that's sometimes enough effort for my brain to decide that Instagram can wait.
And there's some fascinating research behind the idea of simply putting the thing further away.
In a 2017 series of experiments, researchers asked people to complete cognitive tasks while their phones were either on the desk, in a pocket or bag, or in another room.
Participants performed better on measures of available cognitive capacity when their phones were in another room. Remarkably, this happened even when people weren't actually using their phones.
The researchers described this as brain drain, suggesting that the mere presence of our own smartphones may consume some limited cognitive resources.
That makes my silly plastic wall bracket seem surprisingly sophisticated.
I've also started docking my phone when I leave the office.
Making coffee?
Leave the phone.
Taking the dog outside?
Leave the phone.
Going to the loo?
Definitely leave the phone.
I've lost enough years of my life to accidental toilet scrolling.
One thing at a time.
Idea 3. Analogue first, digital second
I love technology.
My MacBook is an extraordinary piece of equipment. The software I use as a designer would have seemed like science fiction when I started my career. I can design something in three dimensions and have a physical version appearing layer by layer on a printer beside me within an hour or two.
Technology is brilliant.
I just don't think it always needs to be where ideas begin. There's a broader argument for this in why analogue still matters — reclaiming focus in a world designed to distract you.
For me, there are often two modes to creative work.
First, messy. Then, precise.
The messy stage is pencils, scraps of paper, notes, arrows, terrible drawings, half-finished sentences and ideas that might go absolutely nowhere.
Then comes the digital stage.
Edit.
Align.
Refine.
Build.
Make it work.
Make it beautiful.
Austin Kleon writes about something similar in Steal Like an Artist. His studio has traditionally been divided into an analogue desk and a digital desk. The analogue side is where ideas are generated; the digital side is where they're edited and published.
I liked that idea so much I've accidentally taken it a step further.
I have two actual desks.
My digital desk contains the computer and the usual equipment.
My analogue desk is an old fold-out writing bureau I rescued from the side of the road about three years ago.
I drove past it.
Thought about it.
Turned the car around.
And gave it a new home.
That's where I write notes and letters, occasionally journal when I remember that journalling exists, package Focus Switches for customers and sketch out ideas.
There's a bookcase immediately beside it.
Sometimes I'll actually take a book down.
Other times simply seeing the spine of a book I've read before reminds me of an idea inside it.
And plenty remain optimistically filed under books I will definitely get around to reading one day.
There's also a paper calendar on the wall.
My particular flavour of ADHD includes a very frustrating relationship with time and dates, so having the month physically visible is surprisingly helpful.
The science doesn't tell us that paper is universally more creative than screens. But there is research suggesting that the medium can change how we process information.
A well-known 2014 series of experiments found that students taking notes by hand performed better on conceptual questions than students taking notes on laptops. The researchers suggested that longhand note-taking may encourage people to process and summarise information rather than simply transcribing it.
Read the study: The Pen Is Mightier Than the Keyboard
That's research into learning rather than creative ideation, so I wouldn't stretch the finding too far.
Personally, removing the browser, notifications and infinite possibilities of the computer gives my thoughts somewhere quieter to begin.
Idea 4. Create a commute
One of the best things about working from home is that there is no commute.
One of the worst things about working from home is that there is no commute.
When you physically travel to work, something happens between home and the office.
You move.
The surroundings change.
There's a period in which you mentally prepare for the day.
And importantly, the process happens again in reverse at the other end.
Home becomes work.
Work becomes home.
When your workplace is twelve steps from your kitchen, that transition disappears.
So sometimes I fake it.
Walk the dog.
Go around the block.
Get a coffee.
Eat breakfast outside.
Do something that involves leaving one environment before arriving back at the house and beginning work.
There's good evidence that the ability to psychologically detach from work matters for recovery and wellbeing.
Research has found that low spatial boundaries between work and home can be associated with poorer psychological detachment from work during non-work time.
A later meta-analysis drawing on 54 independent samples and more than 26,000 participants also found meaningful relationships between psychological detachment from work and outcomes including fatigue and wellbeing.
Read the meta-analysis: Recovery from work-related effort
Research into commuting itself is more nuanced.
A stressful commute certainly isn't good simply because it's a commute. But a five-day diary study of workers found that relaxation during the journey home was associated with better recovery immediately after arriving home. Psychological detachment during the commute also appeared beneficial on particularly demanding workdays.
So I wouldn't claim that walking around the block somehow tricks your brain into thinking you've travelled to an office.
I just know that, for me, a transition helps. Sometimes the best way to change your mind is to change the room.
And walking has another advantage.
Research from Stanford found that walking increased performance on divergent creative-thinking tasks compared with sitting.
Read the study: Give Your Ideas Some Legs: The Positive Effect of Walking on Creative Thinking
A little movement can be surprisingly good thinking time.
Idea 5. Give restless hands somewhere to go
I fidget.
Always have.
Probably always will.
During video calls I'll pick up pencils, spin them around my fingers and occasionally launch them across the room.
Over the years I've stopped treating this as something I necessarily need to eliminate.
Instead, I've become interested in giving the movement somewhere useful to go.
That's where fidget toys and tactile focus tools come in.
I've also noticed that I want different sensations at different times.
If I'm restless, I like the crisp click of a switch. (My first product, Focus Switch came directly from that feeling.)
If I feel tense, I prefer something that provides more pressure and resistance.
When I'm thinking, I like something that rolls or turns beneath my fingers.
Sometimes I simply like the weight of an object in my hand and the feel of smooth wood beneath my thumb.
This is deeply personal.
But there is emerging research into fidgeting and adult ADHD. The science of fidgeting is more nuanced than most people assume.
A 2024 study of 70 adults with ADHD used sensors on participants' wrists and ankles while they completed an attention task. The researchers observed more fidgeting during correct trials and found patterns suggesting that fidgeting may play a compensatory role in sustaining attention.
The research doesn't prove that handing someone a fidget toy will improve their concentration, and spontaneous movement isn't necessarily the same thing as deliberately using a tactile object.
But it challenges the old assumption that movement automatically means someone isn't concentrating.
For me, the ideal focus tool isn't competing for my attention.
It's something my hands can interact with almost automatically while my mind remains on the conversation, problem or idea in front of me. If you're curious, I've written more about how tactile fidget tools help you focus.
Idea 6. Turn the notifications off
This one isn't particularly glamorous.
Turn things off.
My phone spends most of its life on silent.
Chat notifications are muted.
I don't have messages exploding into the corner of my screen every few minutes.
And I've become significantly less interested in achieving the mythical state of inbox zero.
I used to take great pride in email hygiene.
Folders.
Labels.
Everything read.
Everything organised.
Inbox empty.
Wonderful.
Except I was checking the thing constantly.
I'd convinced myself that being extremely responsive was the same as being effective.
It isn't necessarily.
Research on interruptions has repeatedly found that seemingly small interruptions carry a cost.
In one controlled experiment, interruptions that arrived during a task increased completion time, error rates, annoyance and anxiety compared with interruptions presented at natural breakpoints.
Older workplace research into email found something equally revealing.
Employees in one UK organisation typically had their email software checking for new messages every five minutes and responded to incoming messages within an average of just six seconds. Researchers also observed a recovery period before people returned fully to their previous work.
Read the study: Reducing the effect of email interruptions on employees
And task-switching research gives us that useful phrase again:
attention residue.
Part of your mind can remain stuck on the thing you just left.
Read Sophie Leroy's research on attention residue
These days, I'm much happier letting my inbox become a bit untidy.
Most emails don't require an instant response.
I'm experimenting with checking it at a few points during the day rather than treating every new message like someone pulling a fire alarm.
Morning.
Around lunch.
Towards the end of the day.
That's the aspiration, anyway.
I'm still human.
Every so often I go through the inbox and mass-delete all the newsletters and automated messages I was apparently very excited to receive six months ago.
It's incredibly satisfying.
A little digital cleansing ceremony.
I've realised I'd rather spend less time in my inbox and more time actually thinking outside the box.
Idea 7. Remember to breathe
This sounds like a strange thing to admit, but I've never been particularly good at breathing.
I don't mean the automatic staying-alive part.
Thankfully my body has mostly handled that.
I mean when I'm excited, nervous or talking quickly.
I'll start a sentence, add another thought, add another thought to that thought and suddenly discover I didn't take enough air with me for the journey.
One technique I've found useful is box breathing.
It's wonderfully simple.
Imagine tracing the four sides of a square.
↑ Breathe in for four seconds.
→ Hold for four.
↓ Breathe out for four.
← Hold for four.
Then repeat.
I sometimes do this before an important call or during a particularly stressful day.
What I like about it is that it forces me to stop doing everything else for a moment.
Breathe.
Count.
Slow down.
Come back.
There is research into controlled breathing techniques, including box breathing.
In a 2023 randomised controlled study, participants practised five minutes per day of structured breathing or mindfulness exercises for a month. The breathing techniques included box breathing, cyclic sighing and cyclic hyperventilation with breath retention.
Breathwork overall was associated with improvements in mood and reductions in physiological arousal. In this particular study, the exhale-focused cyclic sighing technique produced the strongest improvements in mood and respiratory rate.
Read the study: Brief structured respiration practices enhance mood and reduce physiological arousal
So I wouldn't say box breathing magically "reoxygenates my brain".
My brain was already receiving some oxygen.
What it does seem to do for me is much simpler.
It interrupts the rush.
It gives my attention one very basic thing to do.
And sometimes that's enough.
Build your own version
Perhaps one of the best things we can do with that freedom is build a workspace, and a working day, around the way our own minds actually work. If you'd like to go further, my piece on desk setup for deep work and how to design a working day that suits you might be useful starting points.
None of the techniques in this article will suddenly turn you into an intensely focused productivity machine.
That's not really what I'm aiming for anyway.
My attention still wanders.
I still pick up my phone when I shouldn't.
I still have afternoons when seemingly nothing useful happens, followed by evenings when an idea arrives and I suddenly want to work on it for three hours.
I've become less interested in fighting those parts of my brain.
Instead, I try to shape the environment around them.
Three important things instead of twenty.
A phone on the wall instead of beside my hand.
Paper before pixels.
A walk before work.
Something tactile for restless hands.
Fewer notifications.
Four slow breaths when everything gets a bit too fast.
Small bits of friction between me and distraction.
Small cues that bring me back to what I actually wanted to be doing.
Working from home gives us an unusual amount of control over our environment.
Not perfectly focused.
Just a little easier to get back on track.
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About the author.
Will Saunders is a UK-based designer and founder of UK Focus Lab, a studio creating analogue tools for focus and calmer work. He writes about attention, distraction, tactile design, creativity and our increasingly complicated relationship with technology.
