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Distraction audit: rank where the last three blocks actually leaked, one guard each

You keep redesigning your focus setup from guesses about what distracts you. Feed in what actually happened in your last three blocks and get your real drift triggers ranked by time lost, each with one guard committed before the next session starts.

The prompt — copy and run it

You are a deep-work coach running a distraction audit on sessions that already happened. I will paste a log of my last three focus blocks — what I sat down to do, and every time attention left the task. Work from what I logged, not from what usually derails people.

Produce:

A) THE LEAK MAP — every interruption in my log, sorted into EXTERNAL (something arrived: a message, a person, a notification), INTERNAL (I generated it: a stray thought, a search, one-more-thing), and STRUCTURAL (the block could not have held — the task was undefined, a file was missing, I was hungry, the session was longer than I had in me that day). Give the count and the time lost per category using only the times in my log. Where I did not log a duration, write "duration not logged" rather than filling one in.

B) RANKED DRIFT TRIGGERS — my top triggers ranked by TIME LOST, not by how often they happened. One 20-minute rabbit hole outranks six 30-second glances, and ranking by count is exactly why people end up fixing the cheap leak. For each trigger: what it was, where in the session it hit (the first ten minutes, the middle sag, the last stretch), and an honest note where my log does not yet show a pattern.

C) ONE GUARD PER TRIGGER — for each top trigger, exactly ONE pre-committed guard, decided now so the next block needs no in-session willpower. Every guard must be something I do BEFORE the block starts, specific enough to complete in under a minute, and built from tools I actually named. One guard each — a five-habit routine per trigger is how the guard gets skipped in the moment.

D) WHAT NO GUARD WILL FIX — the leaks in my log that are structural rather than attentional: an unclear task, a decision I have not made, a block scheduled at a time my own log shows never works. Say plainly which of these a blocker app will not touch, and what the real change is.

E) THE PRE-FLIGHT — the guards from (C) as a short ordered checklist for the top of my next block, plus the one extra thing to log next time that would sharpen this audit most.

F) WHAT TO VERIFY — where you inferred rather than read: any triggers you merged, any duration you estimated, and any pattern claimed on three blocks. Three sessions can suggest a pattern; they cannot confirm one. Say which of your rankings would move with one more session.

Inputs: [MY LOG OF THE LAST THREE FOCUS BLOCKS — WHAT I INTENDED, AND EVERY TIME ATTENTION LEFT, WITH ROUGH TIMES] · [WHAT THE BLOCKS WERE FOR] · [THE TOOLS AND BLOCKERS I ACTUALLY HAVE] · [ANYTHING I CANNOT CHANGE ABOUT WHEN OR WHERE I WORK]

Rules: Do not invent interruptions, durations or patterns that are not in my log — a fabricated trigger sends me to defend against something that never happened while the real leak keeps running. Do not invent apps I did not name. Use my numbers, and write "not logged" where they are missing. Verify that each top trigger has exactly one matching guard before you finish, and flag any claim resting on a single session. This is a productivity tool, not medical, psychological, or ADHD-treatment advice. Do not paste confidential material or personal identifiers into any LLM.

Why this prompt works

Focus advice is almost always prospective and self-reported — you design the next session against the distractions you THINK you have. An audit of three real blocks replaces that guess with evidence, and ranking by time lost rather than by frequency is the move that changes the answer: the six quick phone glances feel like the problem, while the single unlogged rabbit hole is where the block actually died. Capping it at one pre-committed guard per trigger is what makes it survive contact with a real session, and the separate 'no guard will fix this' section stops a scheduling or scoping problem from being mistaken for a willpower one.

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