Deep work is a place

Concentration is easier to start than to restart. Each context switch has a cost that does not appear on a calendar: the minutes spent remembering where you were.

Design a place that means one kind of work. Same chair, same hours, same closed door. The ritual is not superstition. It is a way of telling the nervous system that retrieval, not browsing, is about to happen.

If you cannot control a room, control a threshold: headphones, a single document, and a phone in another bag. The environment should make the default action the intended one.