Guides

Short, practical explainers on how attention actually works — and how to spend and restore it. Every guide draws on published research, named where it matters. Then put it to use in the FocusBro app.

Focus sessions & deep work

How Long Should a Pomodoro Be? Sizing Your Focus Intervals

Why the classic 25-minute Pomodoro works, what research says about breaks, and how to size focus intervals to your task and attention span.

Ultradian Rhythms: Why Focus Comes in Roughly 90-Minute Waves

Nathaniel Kleitman’s Basic Rest-Activity Cycle and what ultradian rhythms suggest about pacing deep work in ~90-minute blocks with real recovery.

Deep Work and Attention Residue: The Hidden Cost of Switching

Cal Newport’s idea of deep work and Sophie Leroy’s research on attention residue — why switching tasks quietly drags down your focus, and how rituals protect it.

Flow State and Focus: What It Is and How to Set the Conditions for It

What a flow state actually is (the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and the idea of optimal experience), the challenge-skill balance that produces it, why it cannot be forced on demand, and the practical conditions — a clear goal, a single task, and protected, interruption-free time — that make it more likely.

Time Blocking: Give Every Task a Home on the Calendar

Why an open to-do list expands to fill the day, what Parkinson’s Law and task-switching research say, and how to time-block without it falling apart by 10 a.m.

Breaks, breathing & calm

The Physiological Sigh: The Fastest Way to Calm Down

The double-inhale physiological sigh, the research behind it including a 2023 Stanford trial, and how to use it to lower stress in about a minute.

Box Breathing: The Four-Count Square for Steady Calm

How box breathing — inhale, hold, exhale, hold for equal four counts — steadies the nervous system, what the slow-breathing research actually shows, and how to use it.

The 4-7-8 Breathing Technique: A Longer Exhale to Wind Down

What 4-7-8 breathing is, why the extended exhale — not the exact numbers — does the calming work, what the slow-breathing research actually shows, and how to use it to settle before sleep.

Does Meditation Improve Focus? What the Attention Research Shows

What focused-attention meditation actually trains, what controlled studies have and have not shown about meditation and concentration, and how to start with a few honest minutes a day.

Attention Restoration Theory: Why Nature Breaks Rebuild Focus

The Kaplans’ Attention Restoration Theory, the research on nature and directed attention, and how to get the effect even from a window or a short walk.

The 20-20-20 Rule: A Simple Fix for Screen Eye Strain

What digital eye strain is, why staring at a screen tires your eyes, and how the 20-20-20 rule recommended by eye-care associations helps.

Procrastination, habits & planning

Why We Procrastinate — and What Actually Helps

Procrastination is an emotion-regulation problem, not laziness. Temporal Motivation Theory, the research of Piers Steel and Tim Pychyl, and practical fixes that work with your psychology.

Habit Stacking: Anchoring New Routines to Ones You Already Have

The "after I do X, I will do Y" formula. Why implementation intentions (Gollwitzer) make habits stick, how long habits really take to form (Lally 2010), and how to build a focus stack.

The Weekly Review: Closing Loops So Your Mind Can Rest

David Allen’s weekly review, the Zeigarnik effect, and why writing down a plan for unfinished tasks (Masicampo and Baumeister) frees up attention for the work in front of you.

Notification Batching: Check on Your Schedule, Not Theirs

An interruption costs far more than the seconds it takes. Gloria Mark on the real price of interrupted work, the email-batching study by Kushlev and Dunn, and how to reclaim attention by checking in batches.

Dopamine, Distraction, and Focus: What a "Dopamine Menu" Actually Does

What dopamine really does (it is closer to motivation than pleasure), why modern distractions pull so hard, why "dopamine detox" is a misnomer, and how a simple dopamine menu makes the healthier choice the easy default.

Focus, ADHD & the body

Focus Strategies for ADHD: Working With Your Brain, Not Against It

ADHD as a challenge of executive function and self-regulation, drawing on Russell Barkley’s model — plus externalizing, body doubling, and other practical strategies.

Sleep and Executive Function: Why a Bad Night Wrecks Your Focus

Sleep loss hits the prefrontal cortex first. What Van Dongen and Dinges found about chronic short sleep, why you cannot feel the deficit, and what to protect if you want to think clearly.

Caffeine Timing: How to Get the Focus Without Wrecking Your Sleep

How caffeine blocks adenosine, why its long half-life means an afternoon coffee can still cost you sleep, and how to time it — grounded in sleep research.

Workspace Ergonomics: Setting Up a Desk You Can Focus At

Discomfort quietly competes for your attention. Neutral posture, monitor height, glare, and the "next posture" principle — a practical desk setup grounded in established ergonomics.

Music and Noise for Focus: What the Research Actually Shows

Does music help you concentrate? The honest answer is that it depends on the task. The irrelevant-sound effect, the overblown Mozart effect, and when ambient noise actually helps (Mehta 2012).