The pressure to focus makes you unfocussed

I sometimes do my best design work in the evenings or in the weekends. I also hardly work in the evenings or in the weekends. The reason for that is because I try to put my work into a 9-hour window from 9:00 until 18:00. I’ve been taught that this helps me to keep a balance between my work and other facets of my life, and to some extent that is very true. Especially when working in the office, the physical, almost ritual act of closing the laptop, putting it in the backpack and walking home helps tremendously to transition from thinking about work to thinking about anything but work. Sometimes much needed. But as a designer, in order to succeed you also need to focus. And the pressure of having to focus as quickly as possible, after or even between meetings or lunch, is preventing you from actually focussing. The mind needs time to transition into a state of focus, just like you transition into sleep. Because of the society imposed limited timeframe, you need to focus now, and any moment that you are not focussing you are feeling guilty. That is the reason why I sometimes do my best work in the evenings or in the weekends - when there is no pressure to focus.