Choosing what to ignore is half of focus. You can’t say yes to the essay and to every notification.

Attention is not expandable, so every yes is also a stack of quiet nos. Saying yes to the essay means saying no to each alert that arrives while you write it, and if you have not decided that in advance, the alerts win by default. Focus sounds like effort and is mostly a set of refusals made beforehand.

Before your next real work session, decide exactly what you are ignoring for that hour and make it unavailable: notifications off, tabs closed, phone elsewhere. Write the one thing you are doing on a bit of paper in front of you. One arranged hour beats four of half attention.