Sometimes we start working and soon find ourselves in the zone. Nothing can reach us, we are in our bubble and chip away at a task without engaging at all with the outside world. And before we realise it, a productive day has gone by in a flash and we find ourselves fresh, yet hungry, as we had forgotten to eat during the day.

I know: it's the perfect circumstance to get things done, but it doesn’t always happen, especially if the task is not exactly our most favourite thing to do. So let’s look at ways to get into the borderlands of the zone and focus on the task at hand.

Being productive with any task depends on our ability to focus and how easily we allow ourselves to be distracted.

There is one typical example of distraction that I regularly encounter during decluttering sessions: my client comes across a photo album and immediately they sit down and start looking at photos. I get it, they have not seen those in a while and it’s tempting to open the album, but in the meantime they completely forget about the task at hand.