What helps you to focus?

Immediate: a strong cup of coffee

Long-term: meditation practice (insight/mindfulness/vipassana)

I wouldn’t really know how to get started meditating, are there any online tutorials? @tom_g

Tons of great stuff out there. Sam Harris posted this on his blog recently.

Mindfulness in Plain English (full pdf)

Also, Jon Kabat-Zinn writes some easy beginner books and he has some talks online.

I have definitely experienced the benefits, but the science is there as well.

And finally, if audio is your thing, Gil Fronsdal has a ton of free audio over at audiodharma. Here is a full intro class in mp3 format.

135 power readers.

My system is completely AutoFocus.

Bloody minded refusal to fail.

Take a break by doing something you enjoy. I go out and watch a movie.

If you are healthy, then get some vigorous physical exercise. It will relax you by blowing off some team.

“Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.”

S. Johnson

Exercise break. Seriously. Gets the blood flowing, oxygen to brain, etc.
Plus a vente Starbucks.

Going to a place with few distractions. I used to go to a colleagues office when I was writing my thesis at times because there was nothing of mine there to distract me.

Listen to music that helps you think (some classical works for me) or have no music (also works for me on occasions).

Turn off your phone, fluther, chat anything like that. Put your phone in another room if you know you can’t resist it. Turn off auto notifications on your email.

Let people who are likely to distract you know you are studying and you don’t want to be disturbed.

A pleasant din. I can’t focus with music or excessive talking, but some murmurs/general people sounds in the background focus me like no other. I set up at the computer area of the library. If it’s too quiet I get distracted, oddly enough.

Also, during finals in school I would turn off Airport on my computer. Sometimes this was enough to stop my internet procrastination. I would try to open firefox to look at something irrelevant, then the “working offline” page would remind me to go back to work.

Oh! I can’t believe I forgot. Sex. Totally. The excitement/physical exercise of sex puts me in a really calm, focused mood afterwards. I literally recruited a friend to screw during finals in college, and I worked so well.
My mom asked if I was getting exercise, and I told her “You could say that.”

Bikram Yoga