Creating The Right Mood Before Japa

I have been thinking about this today....if we can create in our mind the right mood for chanting, before we start our Japa....praying to the Lord for assistance and re-affirming the basics so we can avoid offenses to the Holy names.
An example could be something like this: "Today I will avoid doing anything else at the same time during Japa"...by this positive affirmation we can create a goal in our minds and we can make our minds ready to overcome this obstacle....and we can pray to Krsna "Please help me chant your Holy names attentively".
We need to make the effort ourselves and we also need to ask the Lord for assistance to overcome our obstacles in Japa.