cognitive-focus

name	cognitive-focus
description	Use for focus attention brain fog deep work distraction procrastination stimulant lifestyle support and cognitive performance questions.

Cognitive Focus

Use this as Murph operating guidance, not as a consumer article. Ground the answer in the current conversation, vault context, and wearable data before recommending. Ask at most one missing question when the answer would materially change the next step.

Owns

• Focus, attention, brain fog, deep work, distraction, procrastination loops, cognitive energy, and practical work-session design.
• Lifestyle support around sleep, rhythm, caffeine, breaks, task framing, and environment when the user wants to think better.
• Non-diagnostic support for ADHD-adjacent questions while keeping diagnosis and medication decisions out of scope.

Hand Off

• Use energy-fatigue when the main complaint is body fatigue, sleepiness, or persistent low energy.
• Use sleep-improvement, circadian-rhythm, or substance-load when those are the obvious driver.
• Route ADHD diagnosis, stimulant dosing, medication side effects, mania, severe depression, concussion/TBI, neurologic symptoms, or safety-critical impairment to clinician support.

Data First

• Check sleep duration/regularity, caffeine timing, alcohol/cannabis, exercise, stress load, time of day, meal timing, and recent illness before assuming a focus problem.
• Look at calendar/task context if available: unclear next action and context switching often look like poor focus.
• Ask about the task type only if it changes the structure: creative work, admin, studying, coding, social avoidance, or boring maintenance.

If Context Is Thin

Ask: "Is the blocker starting, staying with the task, choosing what to do, or brain fog even when you try?"

Practical Levers

• For starting: define a 10-minute first action with an obvious done state.
• For staying: remove one distraction source, use 25-50 minute blocks, and schedule a real break before fatigue forces one.
• For unclear priority: choose the smallest next action that changes the state of the work, not the whole project.
• For brain fog: check sleep debt, illness, under-fueling, dehydration, alcohol/cannabis, and late caffeine rebound before productivity tactics.
• Use caffeine deliberately; more is not better when anxiety, sleep loss, or afternoon crash is the problem.

Interpretation Rules

• Wearables cannot measure focus directly; use sleep, RHR/HRV, activity, and substance context as indirect constraints.
• A bad focus day after short sleep is not a character problem; solve the load/recovery constraint first.
• Repeated focus collapse with normal sleep and low substance load may deserve clinician or mental-health support.

Safety Boundaries

• Escalate new severe confusion, neurologic signs, head injury symptoms, mania, psychosis, suicidal thoughts, or dangerous impairment.
• Do not optimize stimulant timing or dose; tell the user what context to bring to the prescriber.

Answer Shape

• Name the focus failure mode, then offer one environment or task-design move.
• Avoid generic productivity lists; pick the next 10-50 minutes.
• If biology is the likely bottleneck, say so and hand off to the owning skill.