If you’re having trouble staying focused and on task – welcome to the club. We live in an Age of Distraction, where our daily lives are overflowing with information, noise and notifications. Our surroundings are literally designed for us to get distracted, with businesses and apps competing for our attention every second of every day.

Your attention is your most valuable currency – and everybody wants it.

So it really is no wonder we can’t seem to concentrate on one thing for more than 5 minutes. But if we want to be productive, it is absolutely necessary that we learn how to protect our attention and our time. You may have heard the famous saying by Tony Robbins: “Where attention goes, energy flows”. It’s mind-boggling what we can achieve when we give it undivided attention.

Whether you have a daunting to-do list you need to get to or you’ve been slacking on your goals – here are 6 simple strategies to help you be laser-focused:

1. Have a plan & prioritize

When you have an overwhelming amount of things to do, a solid plan is your best friend. If you want to stay on track, you need to know what the track is. Duh.

So before diving into focus mode, make a list of all the things you’d like to get done today. A lot of people like to use the Rule of 3, which means you pick the 3 most important tasks and solely focus on those for the day. But you can do whatever works for you.

Next, order your tasks based on their priority, so you can go through them one by one. At no point during your day should you be doing different things at the same time, or asking yourself “what am I going to do next?”. We lose a lot of our precious focus, time and willpower when we’re constantly switching between tasks.

2. Brain-dump regularly

If you’re one of those people who keeps all the things they need to get done swirling around in their brain – I’m impressed, but ya gotta stop. In order to stay focused on the task at hand, you can’t be thinking of how you should call your mom, return those pants or learn how to make sourdough bread.

To maintain laserlike focus, brain dumps are essential. Whenever you feel like your head is filled with chaos – grab a pen and paper, and write down all your to-do’s. Whether it’d be things you need to get done at home, at work, dump it all.

You can also use a task management tool for this, like Todoist, Asana, Things (if you’re on Apple) or TickTick. I keep my own ‘Master Brain Dump’ in Notion, and I’m constantly adding things to it to help me function properly.

The point here is to store these things you need to do in a safe space that is not your head. That way you don’t have to think about them until you’re ready to tackle them.  Because trust me, your brain is pretty dang smart and it will keep reminding you. Brain dumping will not only help you concentrate, but also relieve potential stress and anxiety.

3. Time block

One of the best strategies for staying focused on a particular task, is time blocking it. It’s stupid simple, but so effective.

All you do is take your task, and schedule it for the amount of time you’re going to need to complete it. During that time, you will only work on that task. Easy, right?

If your task is going to take several hours, consider using the popular Pomodoro technique, where you focus on the task at hand in little bursts of 25 minutes, followed by short 5-10 minute breaks. You can time these intervals on your browser, a simple kitchen timer or a cute little time blocking cube.

Pro tip: There are a bunch of YouTubers who make ‘Study/Work with me’ videos, also called Pomodoro Sessions. If you like the accountability of having someone work with you in the background, give it a try! 

Avoid using your phone to time block, unless you’re using one of the apps mentioned later.

4. Set the tone

Before we can get in the zone, we have to set the tone. You know best what type of surroundings make you the most productive, but generally you’ll want to clear out as much crap as possible. Especially when your motivation is low, literally anything can be a distraction.

Allow only a select few items to live on your workspace, and put away everything else. Grab your beverage of choice – for me it’s usually tea.

I like to listen to lo-fi hip hop when I’m getting productive, because it’s stimulating but not distracting. This is different for everyone, though – you might prefer classical music, background noise or no noise at all.

Another thing I do to get in the zone is diffuse essential oils. Some oils that are great for focus are peppermint, lavender, rosemary, sage, basil, lemon, and ylang-ylang. I like making blends, because it makes me feel very witchy. You could also light a scented candle.

Also be mindful of your own appearance. There’s no need to get all dolled up, but your brain probably doesn’t associate your PJs with being particularly focused. Simply putting on some proper clothes goes a long way!

5. Ditch the phone – or use it wisely.

I used to be skeptical about this tip – that tends to happen when everybody tells me to do something. But even I have come to realize the inevitable  – we’ve got to lose the phone, people.

When you finally reach that state of deep focus and you’re getting things done at the speed of light, all it takes is a simple buzz or ping to snap you right out of it. And then you’re back to ground 0.

You have 2 choices here. Choice number one is completely ditching the phone. When you’re getting ready to tackle a task, turn on airplane mode and put your phone away. Ideally, you would put it in another room entirely. I personally don’t do this because I tend to forget my phone exists and find it 6 hours later. I don’t want to be raising my cortisol with 4 missed calls and 99 messages, thanks.

Choice number two is using a timer app like Forest or Tide, which help you stay away from your phone and focused on your work. The fun part about these apps is that they track the amount of time you’ve spent in focus mode, which is both gratifying and motivating.

6. Know your times of focus

It’s normal for us humans to not be 100% sharp and alert every hour of the day. We tend to be the most focused in the morning, so it’s generally recommended that you do your biggest task in the early hours of the day. On the other hand, if you need to do creative work, afternoons or evenings tend to be a better option.

However, everyone’s natural rhythm is a bit different – you might be more of a morning person or more of a night owl. Michael Breus, the author of The Power of When, has a great quiz to help you find out your chronotype.

It’s also a good idea to track the times when you’ve been most productive, so you can figure out how your focus is distributed throughout the day. Then plan your different tasks accordingly. This kind of self-awareness will do wonders for your productivity.