Things I do to enable focused work:
- Shut the door
- Noise cancelling headphones
- Turn off my computer's clock display + set an alarm instead. (This isn't always the right call if pacing out your work over the time available is important, but for extended periods of work, it helps me get lost in it.)
- All devices and channels off-noise
- Make sure I'm adequately provisioned with tea and water (though not so much I need to pee every ten minutes)
- We have a smart doorbell. I have deeply mixed feelings about it, but it has been fantastic for my focus -- the principle thing that used to keep me from being able to get lost in work was expecting a package and knowing that I might miss the doorbell with headphones on. (In practice, this never happened -- but either leaving the headphones off or being vigilant to any slight noise I heard through them wasn't productive.) This sends notifications right to me that punch through Do Not Disturb and I'm not afraid of missing.