Your focus system
Put the whole course together in one realistic week: follow Parisa as she builds a plan around her job and her thesis, then build a first version of your own.
MEET PARISA
A full job and a thesis that keeps slipping
Parisa is 27 and lives in Tehran. She's a UX designer at a small agency, working Saturday to Wednesday, 9:30 to 5:30, with a 40-minute metro ride each way. She's also finishing a master's thesis due in four months. Her Thursdays are free until late afternoon; Fridays are for family. She's sharpest before noon.
Her problem: work messages fill her mornings, the thesis gets "tonight", and tonight becomes scrolling in bed until 1am. Chapter 2 hasn't moved in three weeks.
What she decides first
- Priorities (lesson 4): only two for this month: thesis chapter 2, and the agency's app redesign. Sleep is the foundation, not a third project.
- Next actions (lesson 5): chapter 2 becomes a list of concrete steps, starting with "outline the three sections in bullet points".
- Best hours (lessons 3 and 6): the thesis gets her early mornings, before messages start; the redesign gets 10:00 to 11:30 at work.
Check yourself
Parisa's first draft of the week lists seven priorities: thesis, redesign, a new design plugin, gym five times, two books, Spanish and a deep clean of the flat. What should she do with it?
- Keep all seven on the list and simply work more efficiently so they all fit in
- Drop the thesis for now, since it's the one that keeps slipping anyway
- Keep the two or three that matter now; the rest fit in around them
- Give each of the seven exactly the same number of hours this week
Show the answer
Keep the two or three that matter now; the rest fit in around them
Yes. Seven priorities means none of them is protected. Choosing two or three isn't banning the rest; it's deciding what gets her best hours.
Parisa's week
| What | When | Lessons |
|---|---|---|
| Thesis sessions | Sat–Wed 7:30–8:20 · Thu 9:00–12:00 (3 sessions) | 6, 8 |
| Redesign project | Sat–Wed 10:00–11:30, two sessions | 3, 6 |
| Messages and email | 12:00 and 16:00 only | 9 |
| Weekly review | Thu 12:15–12:55 | 11 |
| Shutdown and sleep | Laptop off 17:30 · phone in the hall 22:30 · lights out 23:00 | 10 |
Chapter 2, her gut estimate 20 h
Her ratio from last month × 1.5 (lesson 11)
Realistic estimate 30 h
Thesis time per week
Sat–Wed 5 × 50 min = 250 min
Thu 3 × 50 min = 150 min
Total = 400 min ≈ 6.7 h
Weeks needed = 30 ÷ 6.7 ≈ 4.5 → plan 5 weeksChapter 2 done in about 5 weeks, not "in three weeks, easily".Two months still remain for chapters 3 and 4 and revisions, so the plan fits the deadline with some slack.
Check yourself
Parisa's numbers say chapter 2 needs about five weeks. Adding sessions from 11pm to 1am to squeeze it into three weeks would be a smart use of the plan.
Show the answer
False
False. Those hours come straight out of her sleep, which would weaken every morning session (lesson 10), and late hours are when she's least sharp. If five weeks is too long, she should cut scope or find daytime hours, not borrow from the night.
HER RULES
How she starts, and how she stays
Start (lesson 7): "When I've poured my tea at 7:25, I sit down, open the thesis file and read yesterday's parking note." Space (lesson 2): the phone charges in the hall overnight and stays there until 8:20. During sessions (lessons 8 and 9): a paper capture list by the laptop, and at work headphones plus a status: "Focusing until 11:30, back at 12".
Her team knows she answers at 12:00 and 16:00. Her mother knows: if it's urgent, call twice.
Check yourself
Match each moment in Parisa's week to the part of her system that handles it
Show the answer
- Tuesday 7:30, she doesn't feel like opening the thesis → Her if-then plan and a tiny first step
- A colleague pings at 10:15 about a logo → The status signal and her 12:00 reply slot
- Mid-session thought: book the dentist → The paper capture list
- At 11pm, the urge to scroll in bed → The phone charging in the hall
- Two morning sessions lost in one week → Thursday's review: find the cause, change one thing
Build yours this week
- Choose one to three priorities
What would make the next month count? Write each one's very next action.
- Block sessions in your best hours
Start small: three sessions in week one. Multiply your estimates by your own ratio, or by 1.5 until you have one.
- Write your start and your space
One if-then plan for starting, the phone out of reach, a capture list on the desk.
- Set your off-switch
A shutdown time, a caffeine cut-off and a bedtime that protects seven hours or more.
- Book the review
A fixed 30 to 40 minutes each week. It's where the system learns and improves.
Check yourself
Three weeks in, Parisa's review shows the weekday morning sessions work well. But the Thursday block keeps shrinking to one session, because she sleeps in after Wednesday evenings with friends. What's the best change?
- Scrap the whole system and design a new one from scratch next week
- Set a 6am alarm for Thursdays and force herself up no matter how late she got home
- Stop seeing friends on Wednesdays until the thesis is finished
- Start Thursday's sessions at 10:30 and move the review to the afternoon
Show the answer
Start Thursday's sessions at 10:30 and move the review to the afternoon
Right. The review found one specific cause and the change fits her real life. The parts that work stay as they are, and she keeps her sleep and her friends.
Course recap
- Choose one to three priorities, turn them into next actions, and give them your best hours.
- Plan with your own estimate-vs-actual ratio, and never borrow the time from sleep.
- Start with an if-then plan and a tiny step; run sessions with a capture list and a parking note.
- Missing once is normal; the weekly review finds the cause and changes one thing at a time.
- Your system is a first version. Build it this week, then let the reviews shape it.