Focusing on work / addressing distractions

Continuation of https://nicheless.blog/post/focusing-on-work--types-of-di

A good strategy for resisting distracting thoughts is essential to maintaining focus on the work you want to accomplish. Let's take a closer look at the first distraction highlighted in the previous chapter:

Waiting for a Process to Finish
In my opinion, this is one of the easier distractions to overcome—and it can even be turned into an advantage.

It’s easier to manage because you can anticipate it and mentally prepare for its arrival. Imagine you’ve been writing a script for 20 minutes to parse, download, or process data. You hit ‘run,’ knowing it will take a few minutes—too long to do nothing, yet too short to shift your focus to another task.

Since you know you’ll have a few spare minutes every day, you can prepare in advance by creating a list of small, meaningful tasks to accomplish within that time.

First of all, you can rely on the classic method of meditation! Simply closing your eyes can relieve strain on them. Within seconds, your mind will begin to calm down. You don’t have to focus solely on breathing—you can mentally review the script you just wrote, checking for potential issues that might be easier to fix now rather than debugging the entire pipeline days later. You might even catch an edge case you initially overlooked.

Alternatively, you can simply breathe, relax, and take a moment to observe how your body unwinds.

Another simple activity is dropping to the floor for a few push-ups. This will increase your heart rate, get fresh oxygen flowing through your bloodstream, and leave your brain feeling refreshed and ready to go.

You could also grab a glass of water or make a cup of tea.

Any small task that doesn’t require mental effort and avoids triggering a context switch is_a_good_choice.