8 Ways I Stay Laser Focused on What Matters Every Day
Sometimes you have to have a change of scenery top see where you are at. Made with Midjourney by Author
In a world of ever-increasing distractions, it’s becoming more difficult to stay focused.
Every app, every screen, every notification is fighting for your attention.
So how do you find focus in a sea of distractions?
The answer is simple and cliche.
Prioritize what is MOST important to your life.
Focus each moment on one thing at a time, and using the tools and techniques that work for YOU! You know yourself best.
Here are 8 ways I stay focused on what matters every day:
But first, before you start…
Before starting any task, find your WHY.
Ask yourself: Why are you doing this?
Is it for yourself, to make money, to please someone else, for your job, your family?
Get clarity on your Why, and feel confident in doing it because you CHOOSE to, whether it’s a personal decision or obligation.
Yes, there are things we have to do, but there’s also space to choose.
You probably have a lot more freedom with your time than you imagine.
You can say no to that job, that meeting, that request.
You can say no to another episode or another 5 minutes on social media.
You can choose to push hard and stay up late to finish your blog post even though you really just want to hit the hay 😉️.
You can make time for what truly matters to you — the things that align with your purpose.
“If you know the why, you can live any how.” — Friedrich Nietzsche
Your why becomes the engine that makes everything else become automatic. Once you have a destination, then you can pump your tires and fuel up with premium fuel!
1. Make a List and Make time!
The most tried and proven method in dozens of productivity books.
Write down 3–5 main tasks for the next day, the night BEFORE!
Tomorrow begins today, specifically the night before.
Have your list physically in front of you, whether its on a post-it note, on a second screen, or on a whiteboard in front of you.
This was one of the numerous productivity tips I learned in the book “Make Time” by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky. They are ex-Googlers who experimented with countless productivity tactics. I highly recommend their book.
The core of the book is simple: Highlight → Laser → Reflect.
Illustration from the book Make Time
Your Highlight is the ONE thing you must get done. Make it focused and between 60–90 minutes to keep it intentional and doable.
Next is Laser focusing on that one thing, the book details a bunch of ‘tactics’ — calendar blocking, saying no, and much more.
While you Laser, you also Energize to help keep your brain laser focused, including exercise breaks, proper eating and brain food snacking for example.
Then at the end of the day, you Reflect on what you achieved and what you didn’t finish. Then prep and plan for tomorrow:
Reflection’s for your evening journal — Make Time
Sometimes your Highlight can shift, and that’s OK, but start with setting one first and be committed to accomplish it.
2. Mindfulness
The more I learn about focusing, stress and anxiety, the more I realize how important it is to be mindful everyday.
Mindfulness does not mean being a guru or meditating on a mountaintop.
I think more people are realizing that now.
Mindfulness is simply noticing when your mind is getting lost in thoughts, storylines and distracted from the present moment.
In our hyper-connected world, we have become more restless, distracted, and overstimulated than ever before. Ironically, the more connected we are to the world, the less mental space it gives for us to be present in the world right in front of us. Our own lives, our own relationships, and our own selves.
Mindfulness helps elongate the gap between stimulus and response, so we can better react to our default programming and make the mindful choice to react and respond in a way WE truly want.
Mindfulness helps increase the mental space between a Stimulus and Response. Image Credit: Author
The more you notice your mind wandering, the stronger that muscle gets. Every time you catch yourself drifting, bring the attention back to the body.
Every time you catch yourself defaulting to impulse, notice that.
The more you do this, the more control you will have over your choices in other areas of your life.
James Clear, author of the bestselling book “Atomic Habits” writes that Habits are the small decisions that you make everyday. So in order to accomplish big goals in life, you have to focus on being mindful of the little distractions and small habits.
Once you practice mindfulness, over time your brain will start saying:
“Hey, I’m distracted. I shouldn’t be doing this right now.” STOP. Take a beat.
Write it down, get back to work, and do that other thing later.
3. Pomodoro Method 🍅
Some people have a love-hate relationship with the Pomodoro (Tomato in Italian) technique.
The pomodoro timer is setting a 25 or 30 minute focusing session, followed by a 5 minute break.
This is how you really use it:
The trick here is to first write down the specific thing you will be laser focusing on during these next 25 minutes.
Sometimes it helps to say it out loud.
It might sound weird but I find this to be helpful on days when I’m having a difficult time focusing.
When your focus session is over, I recommend using your break to get up from your desk, take a stretch and try the 20–20–20 technique. Every 20 minutes, look at something 20 feet away, for 20 seconds to relax your eyes.)
You can even do a set or two of pull ups or push ups during those 5 minutes to get your heart pumping to give yourself an additional energy boost.
I use the Pomodoro Timer within the Momentum Dash browser extension, which leads to my next tactic.
4. Momentum Dash (Browser Extension)
Momentum Dash changed the way I focus.
It’s a browser extension, a suite of tools acting as your focus “hub”.
You are greeted with a beautiful background photo, and your Main Goal (Or in our case, a spot to write your Highlight), Focus music, Saved bookmarks, Tab Stash (Stash your tabs away), Saved Tab groups (Auto open saved tabs) Website blocker, inspirational quotes and a lot more.
I mainly use The Pomodoro feature to time my Focus sessions and type in my current focus. In this case, it’s to finish my blog draft.
I have it open on my second monitor so I constantly see what I’m supposed to be doing. Every time you open a new tab, you are greeted with Momentum Dash, reminding you again on what you’re working on.
Paired with my focus music (more on that next), it keeps me locked in.
I press start, then I start my playlist.
5. Focus Music
I’ve tried it all and this is what works best for me.
Make your own playlist of songs that get you in the zone, whether its synth-wave, a movie soundtrack, lo-fi, classical or jazz, experiment and find what truly works for you.
Or maybe you find you are more creative with classical music, and more productive with writing with jazz.
I do not recommend focusing while listening to music with words you understand, otherwise your brain will constantly try to decipher these words and you will dip in and out of your flow.
However, it could be in a language you don’t understand, say french jazz.
Some exceptions to this are for “mindless” tasks or activities, like creative work, checking email or doing basic busy work.
Once you’ve find your genre of music that gets you in the zone, make a playlist.
Let’s say we’re making a Hyper Focus playlist, make it about 25 minutes long to time-sync with Pomodoro timer.
Focusing like All Might. A screenshot of my “ULTRA FOCUS” Spotify playlist, with the My Hero Academia soundtrack
End the playlist with a “break song” to signal to you its time to stop, take a break and get up from your chair.
I’ll share my playlists at the bottom of the article!
6. Distraction Flash Cards (aka The D-List)
Next is to create Distraction Flash cards or a distraction list.
Remember that focusing is really about noticing distractions.
Every time a thought tries to hijack your brain, write it down.
I have a whiteboard right in front of my desk for this — my D-List, my distraction list. Think of it like your distraction dump.
These are thoughts like “Check Amazon,” “Research new mic”, “Look at new Apple Event” and distractions like that.
My D-List for the day
Once you write it down, you release that impulse and delete that distraction. Save it for later!
7. Hide your phone!
This one might be the most obvious, but it’s probably the most important.
Studies have shown that even just seeing your phone (even if it’s upside down) can reduce cognitive performance.
So put it on Do Not Disturb, and put it somewhere else.
Do not Disturb on iOS. Photo by Elijah Fox on Unsplash
Don’t tempt yourself! If you really are expecting a call, you can have it sync with your laptop or Mac with iOS Focus Modes to allow just a family member or boss to be able to reach you during that time.
Side note, I just turned my iPhone into a “dumb smart phone” Highly recommend! Add a anti glare screen protector to complete the look.
8. Open Packages at the END of the Day
This one might seem silly but its critical. Don’t give into the instant gratification.
What this does is it reinforces the impulse muscle of your brain to react without thinking.
Remember the mindfulness stimulus/response graphic from earlier? It’s doing the complete opposite of that.
If practicing mindfulness is like hitting the gym, giving into your immediate impulses is like doing cocaine for your brain.
It destroys those mindful muscles.
Save that package (or any dopamine instant gratification) as a reward until your work is done at the end of the day. It will act as a fun motivator and reward when the day is done! It’s a win-win!
I’ve been refining these techniques for the past 10 years and consolidated them into these 8 tips.
These are the exact habits and tools I use to focus every day.
Remember, find out the system that works for and that takes the least amount of time to maintain.
A system is pointless if you spend 4 hours everyday meidtating journaling and doing all these things in order to stay focused — then they themselves turn into a distraction!
I want to hear from you in the comments, what tactics do you use to better focus everyday?
Thanks so much for reading and keep on kicking ass!
Gabe
Watch my latest YouTube video on this same blog post!
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I really appreciate it!
Originally published November 17, 2025 | © Gabe Silverstein 2025
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