I Need My Attention Back: Therapy for Focus & Deep Work
- ✓I open my laptop to write and somehow I'm scrolling again
- ✓I can't finish a thought without my phone pulling me away
- ✓My brain feels like a browser with 47 tabs open
You're not broken—and you're definitely not alone in this.
The average knowledge worker is interrupted every 11 minutes, and research shows it takes 23 minutes to fully refocus after a distraction. Nearly 70% of people report struggling to sustain attention on demanding tasks.
This isn't a willpower failure—it's a nervous system that's been trained for fragmentation. The constant context-switching creates real cognitive costs that compound over time. If your mind races even in quiet moments, [therapy for overthinking](/topics/self-development/overthinking) might be part of your puzzle.
Why Your Focus Has Disappeared
Self-development struggles often feel personal: 'Why can't I just do the thing I said I'd do?' For focus, the gap between intention and action is rarely about discipline—it's about your system's automated response to distraction cues. Your brain has learned to seek novelty as a reward, making deep work feel effortful and unrewarding. This is where **implementation intentions**—specific if-then plans—become powerful: they automate your focus response by linking a cue ('when I sit at my desk') to an action ('I begin a 5-minute sprint'). Research shows this behavioral strategy significantly improves goal achievement by reducing decision fatigue (Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006).
Signs You're Dealing With Focus Fragmentation
- •**The Pull is Automatic:** You reach for your phone without deciding to—your hand moves before your mind catches up.
- •**Depth Feels Impossible:** You can answer emails all day, but one hour of deep thinking exhausts or eludes you.
- •**Your Mind Won't Land:** Even with blocked calendar time, your attention skitters across surfaces like water on hot glass.
- •**The Shame Spiral:** You blame yourself, wondering if your brain is permanently broken or if you're just lazy.
Something to try
The 5-Minute Focus Sprint (Behavioral Activation)
Choose one tiny, specific task ('outline three bullet points'). Set a timer for exactly 5 minutes and work only on that. When the timer ends, you have full permission to stop completely. This works because behavioral activation bypasses the motivational system—you don't wait to 'feel like it,' you create momentum through action. Even minimal progress activates reward circuits, making it easier to continue.
This is a jump-start, not a full engine rebuild—sustainable focus requires mapping your specific distraction triggers and building systems around them.
What to expect in therapy
Therapy for focus typically involves CBT to identify distraction triggers, ACT to build psychological flexibility around urges, and Solution-Focused work to design environmental systems that protect your attention. Your clinician becomes a thinking partner who experiments with what actually works for your brain.
You can rebuild your capacity for deep work—and reclaim the quiet satisfaction that comes from thinking clearly again.
Ready for support that fits?
If you've tried focus apps and productivity hacks that didn't stick, it's not your fault—generic advice rarely accounts for your specific attention pattern. We match you with clinicians who understand the neuroscience of distraction and can build a system that fits how your brain actually works.