Not motivation tips. Nine concrete changes to the task, the room and the clock that make focus more likely, in roughly the order they pay off.
"Study for the exam" cannot be started; it can only be dreaded. "Do questions 1 to 6 on page 112" can be started in ten seconds. Most focus problems are starting problems, and starting problems are almost always task-size problems. Before each session, write the next block's task as one line, small enough that you are slightly embarrassed by how small it is.
Focus fades faster when you do not know how long you have been at it or how long is left. A visible countdown fixes both. The Pomodoro Technique is the simplest version: a block of focus, a short break, repeat. Twenty-five minutes is the traditional block; if that feels long, ten or fifteen is a legitimate place to start (see the short-block timer). If it feels short, try fifty.
Face-down on the desk does not count. Silent does not count. The phone needs to be in another room or in a bag across the room, because the cost of checking it has to be higher than the urge. If you use it for music, move the music into the same tab as your timer instead, so there is no reason to pick it up.
Silence lets every small noise in. Music with lyrics competes with reading and writing, because both use the language parts of your brain. What tends to work is steady, lyric-free sound: rain, café murmur, or instrumental music such as lofi. Pick one for the whole block and do not fiddle with it; choosing tracks is itself a distraction.
Every open tab is a promise to be distracted later. Close everything not needed for this block. If a thought about something else arrives ("email Priya"), write it on the task list and keep going; the list holds it so your head does not have to.
A break is for your body: stand, walk, water, look out of a window. A five-minute video is not a break, because it is a different kind of attention rather than a rest from attention, and it reliably becomes twenty-five minutes. Keep breaks screen-free and the next block starts much more easily.
Being around others who are working makes it easier to work. Libraries exist for this reason. If you cannot get to one, a shared timer does much of the same job: join a study room with a friend, start the block at the same moment, and quitting early acquires a small social cost. That cost is often exactly enough.
"I studied all day" usually means six hours at a desk and ninety minutes of work. Track completed focus blocks and look at the weekly total. The number is usually lower than you expect and far more useful than the guilt, because it tells you what to change: more blocks, not longer days.
Attention is best before the day has spent it. Do the hardest subject first, before messages, before the group chat, before anything with a feed. One good block before breakfast is worth two tired ones after dinner.
A workable session looks like this: task written in one line, phone in another room, one tab open, rain or lofi on, 25-minute block, five-minute screen-free break, repeat four times, long break, check the stats. PomoSpot bundles the timer, the task line, the sound and the stats in one tab, and it is free. The tools are simple; the habit is the work.