How to Use Focus Mode: Distraction-Free Study Sessions

Focus Mode is a calm, distraction-free study space with a timer. When it starts, StudyZone hides its menus and links, so the only things on screen are your session, your timer and, if you want, the notes you are studying from.

Every completed session is saved. It adds study time to your day, counts toward your study streak, and helps your position on the leaderboard. Your full history and a focus calendar are in the Study Hub.

Tip: Focus Mode works best for one clear task, such as "Revise Organic Chemistry chapter 3" or "Solve 20 integration problems". A vague goal like "study" makes it harder to stay on track.

Open Focus Mode from the Study Hub, the dashboard or the Focus icon on any planner task. The setup screen has a few short steps:

1. What will you study? Link a task from your Study Planner (optional) and give the session a title of at least 3 characters.
2. Study material (optional). Choose a PDF to read beside the timer. See the next section.
3. How long? Pick 15, 25, 45, 60 or 90 minutes, or type a custom length from 5 to 180 minutes.
4. Pomodoro breaks (optional). Turn them on to study in blocks (for example, 25 minutes) with short breaks (for example, 5 minutes) in between.
5. Theme and sound. Choose Calm, Night (low glare) or Warm (paper-like), and an optional background sound.
6. Daily target (optional). Set how many minutes you want to study per day. Your progress shows on the focus screen.

Check the Session summary on the right, then press Start focusing.

You can open a PDF right beside your timer, so you never need to switch tabs. There are two places it can come from:

Notes you have downloaded are always listed on the My downloads page in your dashboard. From there you can read them, download them again for free, or press Focus Mode to start a session with that note already open.

While you study, the PDF reader gives you:

• Scroll and zoom. Scroll through every page, zoom in or out, or jump to a page number.
• Docked view. The PDF sits on the left and the timer on the right. Drag the edge between them to make the PDF wider or narrower.
• Floating window. Press the pop-out button to turn the PDF into a window you can drag anywhere and resize from its corner. StudyZone remembers where you put it.
• Change or remove the PDF. Click the PDF name at the top of the reader to switch to another download, add a PDF from your computer, or choose Remove this PDF.
• Hide it. Use Hide PDF in the top bar when you want only the timer, and Study material to bring it back.

Tip: On a phone, the PDF appears above the timer. On a laptop or desktop, the docked view gives you the most reading space.

Yes. Focus Mode is strict enough to keep you honest, but flexible when you need it:

• Pause: up to 3 times per session. Paused time is never counted as study time.
• Pomodoro breaks: start automatically at the end of each study block and end on their own. You can also press Skip break & continue.
• Add time: press Add time and choose +5, +10, +15 or +30 minutes. A session can be up to 5 hours in total. The session counts once the new time is finished.
• End early: you can stop at any time, but an early-ended session does not count toward your streak.

Only real study time is counted. The timer runs on StudyZone's server and checks that your Focus page is still open, so the time cannot be skipped or faked.

• Short tab switches (under about 2 minutes) are fine and do not stop your session.
• Longer time away, closing the tab or the laptop going to sleep marks the session as *interrupted*. Your progress is saved, and you can press Resume session to finish the remaining time.
• A quick page reload continues the session automatically.
• Going offline keeps your progress safe. Focus Mode syncs again when you are back online.

Tip: Turn on full screen (the expand icon in the top bar) and put your phone in another room. These two steps remove most distractions.

When the timer reaches zero, you see a Session complete screen with:

• Your study time for the session, added to today's total.
• Your streak, extended if this is your first completed study of the day.
• New badges, if you reached a streak milestone such as 3, 7 or 30 days.
• Mark task complete, if the session was linked to a planner task.
• A short reflection box. One or two lines about what you learned make revision easier later.

Your sessions also appear on the focus calendar in the Study Hub. Teal days have a completed focus session, and amber days had a session that was started but not finished.

Start with 25 to 45 minutes and grow from there. Most students concentrate best in blocks of 25 to 50 minutes with short breaks.

Set a realistic daily target, such as 120 minutes, and let your streak do the motivating. Two focused sessions every day beat one very long session once a week.