Be more productive with focus sessions
Tame distractions and get things done: Nik Rawlinson takes a close look at focus features in Windows and other platforms
It’s been said that the obstacles in our path aren’t what stop us achieving great things; rather, it’s the easier paths we choose to follow instead.
Nowhere is this truer than when sitting at a computer. You could be getting on with writing your novel, but half an hour clicking around the web is easier and more beguiling. You could have finished filing your taxes – if you’d not been distracted by your email. You might even have got ahead on an academic assignment, if you hadn’t spent the time compiling the perfect playlist. Each of these paths is a distraction, and while we’re sympathetic to anyone who finds themselves continually distracted by an ever-connected PC, there really is no excuse for such behaviour today – not if you’re using Windows.
That’s because the latest versions of Windows 10 and 11 include a feature called Focus Sessions to help you shut out distractions. When a focus session is active, alerts and notifications are disabled, and the computer tracks how long you’ve been working so far and how long you still have to go, so you don’t need to worry about burnout. Let’s take a look at how focus sessions can help you in daily life – and how you can take advantage of similar features when working on other platforms.
Setting up your sessions
Before you start focusing, you’ll want to set up some parameters. Unhelpfully, the relevant settings are split between the Clock app and the wider system settings, so you’ll need to visit both to fully tailor Windows to your requirements.
Start by opening the Settings app (press Windows+I), then type “focus” into the Search box and click on “Focus settings”. You’ll see four tickboxes that let you decide how Windows will behave while in focus mode, and we recommend you ensure that they’re all ticked to minimise distractions. The second, third and fourth are by far the most important as they stop notifications from drawing attention to themselves – which is otherwise precisely what they’re designed to do.