Often the "hack on something personal" just flicks a switch for me, I'm talking within an hour or two - but sounds like you're feeling a bigger sense of urgency than even that would help.
.. which honestly sounds an awful lot like the stress of the situation (or concern about cognitive decline) - which isn't going to do your focus any favours!
Any kind of reset can help with that: go for a short walk, chuck some binaural beats on headphones and close your eyes for 5 mins, drink a warm (non-caffeinated) beverage and think about something else.
Above all else: probably good to just remember everyone has off days, other engineers aren't going to judge you for a day of lower productivity
Aside from reducing your internal stress, One key ingredient of finding "flow" is a sense of immediate feedback, perhaps allocate 20 mins to some short tasks which give rapid reward; write a couple tests, draw a diagram, etc..
.. which honestly sounds an awful lot like the stress of the situation (or concern about cognitive decline) - which isn't going to do your focus any favours!
Any kind of reset can help with that: go for a short walk, chuck some binaural beats on headphones and close your eyes for 5 mins, drink a warm (non-caffeinated) beverage and think about something else.
Above all else: probably good to just remember everyone has off days, other engineers aren't going to judge you for a day of lower productivity
Aside from reducing your internal stress, One key ingredient of finding "flow" is a sense of immediate feedback, perhaps allocate 20 mins to some short tasks which give rapid reward; write a couple tests, draw a diagram, etc..
Binaural beats (use "relaxed"): https://mynoise.net/NoiseMachines/binauralBrainwaveGenerator...
Going for a walk is kind of a lightweight "shower effect", random article link: https://buffer.com/resources/shower-thoughts-science-of-crea...
(Sorry, time zone mismatch slowed my response)
Link dump (for reading some other time)
- stress and brain function: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6504531/ - flow state https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)