Reading Time – 7 minutes

In 2026 I will turn 54. This will be a hard deadline on some very big financial and business goals I’ve had for well over a decade.

I have made incredible progress towards these goals over the past 15 years, but I still have not hit them, and I have only two years left to do so. Moreover, last year I had some reasonably serious problems I had to overcome which means I didn’t make as much progress in 2023 as I could have. The good news is that in 2023 and early 2024 I’ve made some big operational shifts in how I work, much of which I’ve already discussed in prior articles and podcasts.

This all means I’ve been really pouring on the gas lately to make sure I hit these 2026 goals, working very hard even by my standards which are much higher than most people.

At the moment, I am working all day and all night six days a week, with just an afternoon or evening off on the seventh day where I still put in 3-4 hours of work.

It’s not like I work 15 hours straight; I certainly take breaks as I work, plus I have other things to do in a typical day like address my fitness and my personal life. Regardless, I’m putting in over 10 hours of work daily.

Not only are most people not willing to work this hard for their goals or their Mission (most people don’t even have a Mission), but most people can’t work this hard because they lack the focus or the energy to do so.

In terms of energy, in my early 50s I have more energy than most men I know in their 20s who are half my age. But I’ve addressed physical energy a lot over at my other brand.

Today I’m going to cover the other side of the coin, which is focus. Here are the things I do to stay focused all day and all night to work on those tasks I need to get done. I’m not perfect and there are still aspects of focus where I need to improve, but as compared to most modern-day people I’m easily in the top 5%.

They are listed in no particular order.

I Get 8 Hours Of High-Quality Sleep Every Night

I’ve written a lot about the importance of sleep and I’m not going to go over all of that again here. The bottom line is that one of the most important things you can do for your daily focus, energy, and happiness is to make sure you get 7-8 hours of sleep per night, every night of the week. So few people are willing to do this, and getting that proper amount of sleep gives you a tremendous edge over everyone else.

I use an Oura ring to track my sleep every night. My sleep efficiency is usually around 90% (average is 65-85%) and my resting heart rate while I sleep is 59-62 beats per minute, which is considered “athlete” for a man my age. I’m in bed 8.25 – 8.5 hours a night which means I get 7.5 hours of real, actual sleep every evening.

It’s fucking awesome. It’s a performance enhancer like nothing else. I have more energy and focus than the vast majority of humans and I never drink coffee.

I Always Work With Timers

I use a timer app (Toggl, but there are many other good ones) to track 100% of my work. At the end of the week, my team collates this data into weekly reports that I review every Sunday. This way I know immediately if I’m slacking off or spending time in areas I shouldn’t. I also set weekly goals for certain amounts of work hours in certain areas of my business based on this data.

If I’m involved in flow state work, which for me is writing and creating content, I can work for hours upon hours and never get tired because I love it.

If I’m not doing flow state work, and often I’m not, especially lately, I always set a timer for a minimum of two hours whenever I start working and force myself to keep working through those two hours before I allow myself to take a break. Then I will set a timer for the length of the break (15-60 minutes depending on the time of day) and then get my ass back to work when the timer goes off.

I Remove All Distractions When I Work

I always work with a 100% clean desk with nothing on it except my trackball, keyboard, monitors, metal cup of water, and maybe a 3×5 card with a goal or key statement on it. (The current one on my desk right now says, “EVERY DAY IS A WEEK”).

Whenever I work I put my phone on silent, set the timer, and then put it behind me so I don’t even see it. I don’t touch it for any reason until the timer goes off or I’m done working.

I work in an apartment that I chose specifically for its very quiet location, even though it’s in downtown Dubai. I also usually wear my Bose noise-canceling headphones while I work and play either soft music, white noise, or both (white or brown noise with very quiet music) so I can’t hear ANYTHING while I work. It’s great.

I don’t want my body distracting me from my work either. So before I do any multi-hour work blitz, I do things like go to the bathroom, floss my teeth, ensure I have plenty of water in my water cup, and so on. Since I’m a man and can therefore be distracted by sexual thoughts when I’m trying to work, I make sure that the sexual side of my life is abundant and more than handled so this doesn’t happen, or happens rarely (the specifics on that are a topic for my other blog).

I Ensure My Ergonomics Are Perfect

Before a work blitz, I situate myself perfectly into my Aeron chair where my back is 100% straight, almost leaning forward a little bit, with my head and arms supported at 90-degree angles, where my stomach is gently touching the edge of the desk, looking directly at my monitors which are at exactly eye-height.

I also use a standing desk that I can use not only to work while standing but also that adjusts 100% to the correct height for me when sitting.

I am usually barefoot when I’m home but I usually wear comfortable slippers while I work so my feet are cushioned and don’t get too cold from the AC that is constantly going in Dubai.

I Always Work From A List

One of the dumbest things people do is that once they’re done doing fire-fighting work (like checking their email and social media DMs), they sit down and try to figure out what to work on next. Insane. The odds of getting distracted when people do this are sky-high, so I make sure that 100% of the time I’m working from a to-do list based on my weekly plan that I formulate every Sunday, which itself is based on my quarterly plan.

So whenever I finish a task, I always know exactly what to do next without having to think about it or figure it out. I just look at my to-do list or my schedule (depending on the scenario) and then robotically do what it tells me to do.

One of the best pieces of business advice I ever received when I was a young man was from a very wealthy self-made businessman who said, “I’m not the boss. My to-do list and my schedule are my bosses.”

I Stay Hydrated All Day

I drink water literally all day long. It’s also reverse-osmosis water from an advanced filtration system I have in my home, which is the best water you can drink. Being even a little dehydrated, which most people are, will negatively affect your focus.

I Meditate About 4 Times A Week

Regular meditation increases your attention span. I meditate about four times per week doing transcendental meditation (the hardest kind of meditation there is) where you just think of a mantra (like “ohm, ohm, ohm”) for 20 minutes straight. Most people can only do about 1-2 minutes of TM.

Data shows that even 1-3 minutes of meditation will help you focus and build a stronger attention span, so just go for 3 minutes to start if this is an area of interest.

I Have Goals That Are Huge And Exciting For Me

Whenever I feel less focused or distracted despite everything I do, especially if I’m doing a lot of work I don’t consider very fun, I always go back to my goals, which are very exciting and motivational to me. I have dozens of vivid images of my perfect life on my laptop and my phone. I review these often, almost every day, and they give me a little charge whenever I do so.

I also have my Vision (my perfect life written out in a document) and my Mission (my purpose in life) clearly defined and written out, and I review these at least once a week.

Focus is indeed a skill you can improve. If you feel you aren’t very focused, pick one of the items above and work on it. Just doing that alone will improve your focus and your results.

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Question of The Week

How To Be Location Independent

T.G. Writes:

How do you keep things running smoothly from afar when your business spans different areas, like China or Africa, without sticking solely to online stuff? From what I gather, it looks like you either end up hiring a manager to keep things in check or you’re hopping on a plane every so often to sort things out yourself. That’s what a buddy of mine does to keep his freedom while managing his business – working with a local manager, but that’s an employee and I know you’re against hiring employees. If not hiring people directly, does that mean leaning on virtual assistants or making repeat trips is the way to go? How else would you do this?

The simple answer, and one you’re not going to like, is that I would not start a location-independent business that “requires” a human being to ever be physically located in any specific city or country. I realize there are some business models like this, but there are 50,000 other location-independent businesses you could start that never require anyone to physically go anywhere.

I can’t tell if you have already started a business or not; my guess is that you haven’t yet but are thinking about copying someone else you see running a location-independent business where sometimes someone is required to be somewhere. Well, shit. Just don’t do that and pick one of thousands of other kinds of businesses where that isn’t required.

Just in case you already have a business like this, or are attempting to convert a location-dependent business to a location-independent one, here’s what I would do:

1. Hire an on-the-ground subcontractor (NOT an employee) at that location to be your eyes and ears when you need them. I did this when I did remote I.T. work; I would hire an I.T. dude in the target city and had him use his phone to show me what the problems were and I would guide him remotely if needed. My dad had a mental health counseling agency where he hired therapists in distant cities, paid them as contractors, and sent them business from his corporate clients while he took a margin off the top. It’s a little complicated but it can work.

2. Only physically go there if you WANT to go there for other reasons. When I did much more corporate consulting, I would work with location-independent clients in places like Europe or Hong Kong, but I would only go there if I wanted to visit Europe or Hong Kong for my own reasons (nice tax write-off for my travel too), not because I felt I “had” to be there.

My business exists to serve ME and MY life. I don’t live to serve my business, at least not long-term.

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