Focus
I want to focus for longer
Holding attention on one hard thing without reaching for your phone. The tools here range from free breathing drills to serious changes in how you structure a day.
82 entries · ranked by consensus across 34 stacks
Costs nothing but effort
Protocols and habits, ranked by how many tracked stacks include them. These are listed first on purpose: they are free, and they are where the agreement is strongest.
- Deliberate cold exposureProtocol$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Cold showers or ice baths used deliberately, usually a few minutes at a time
- +15
- Daily readingHabitFREE, no cost
A fixed daily reading block, usually books rather than feeds
- +13
- Daily meditationHabitFREE, no cost
10-20 minutes of formal practice, most days
- +11
- Morning sunlight exposureProtocolFREE, no cost
Bright outdoor light soon after waking, 5-30 minutes and no sunglasses
- +4
- Early risingHabitFREE, no cost
A fixed, early wake time, often before anyone else is awake
- +3
- Deliberate solitudeHabitFREE, no cost
Regular time with your own thoughts and no other inputs
- +2
- Phone out of the bedroomHabitFREE, no cost
Charge it in another room and buy an actual alarm clock
- +1
- Environment designProtocolFREE, no cost
Change the room instead of relying on willpower
- NappingHabitFREE, no cost
Short early-afternoon naps: useful, but easy to get wrong
- Phone-free first hourHabitFREE, no cost
No email, news or social media until you have done something of your own
- Pre-workout musicHabitFREE, no cost
Headphones on, a set playlist, and a fixed cue to switch into training mode
- Daily writingHabitFREE, no cost
Write something every day, published or not
- Deep work blocksProtocolFREE, no cost
Long, scheduled, distraction-free sessions on one cognitively hard task
- Time blockingProtocolFREE, no cost
Give every hour of the workday a job before the day starts
- BridgeHabit$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Contract bridge, played at a table or online, several sessions a week
- Digital declutterProtocolFREE, no cost
A 30-day break from optional tech, then reintroduce deliberately
- Non-sleep deep rest (NSDR)ProtocolFREE, no cost
10-20 minute guided body-scan rest, sometimes called yoga nidra
- Pomodoro techniqueProtocolFREE, no cost
Work in timed sprints, usually 25 minutes on and 5 minutes off
- Thinking retreatsHabitFREE, no cost
Blocks of time cleared of the schedule to sit with one hard problem
- 20-slot punch card ruleProtocolFREE, no cost
Imagine a lifetime card with only 20 punches: every big decision has to earn one
- 5 Second Rule countdownProtocolFREE, no cost
Count 5-4-3-2-1 out loud and move before hesitation talks you out of it
- A few high-quality decisions a dayProtocolFREE, no cost
Aim for three well-made decisions rather than a hundred rushed ones
- Box breathingProtocolFREE, no cost
Inhale, hold, exhale, hold, each for a count of four, repeated for a few minutes
- Bulletproof CoffeeProtocol$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Coffee blended with grass-fed butter and C8 MCT oil, drunk in place of breakfast
- ChessHabitFREE, no cost
Short games used as a mental reset between blocks of demanding work
- Circle of competenceProtocolFREE, no cost
Work only inside the area you can genuinely evaluate, and know exactly where its edge is
- Cookie jarProtocolFREE, no cost
A mental store of past wins to draw on when you want to quit
- Daily designHabitFREE, no cost
Writing the day ahead in the past tense, then scoring it out of ten at night
- Daily prayerHabitFREE, no cost
A fixed time for prayer each morning, before the phone and before the day starts
- Dance trainingProtocol$$$Mid: Roughly $50 to $500, or up to $50/month.
Choreography and movement classes as conditioning and coordination work
- Day one, week one mentalityProtocolFREE, no cost
Show up every day as prepared as you were on the first day of the job
- Deliberate wanderingProtocolFREE, no cost
Unplanned, inefficient exploration kept on purpose as the counterweight to efficiency
- Hard thinking before lunchProtocolFREE, no cost
Book the mentally demanding work for the morning and stop making big calls late in the day
- HRV biofeedback trainingProtocol$$$Mid: Roughly $50 to $500, or up to $50/month.
Paced breathing against a live heart rate variability readout, a few minutes a day
- Jigsaw puzzlesHabit$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Thousand-piece puzzles as a screen-free way to switch the mind off
- Margin notesHabitFREE, no cost
Writing in the margins while reading, especially where you disagree with the author
- Morning newspapersHabit$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
A stack of print papers read start to finish before the working day begins
- Open calendarHabitFREE, no cost
An appointment book kept almost empty so most days are free for reading and thinking
- Personal mantraHabitFREE, no cost
A quote kept where you will see it before you perform, taped up or written on your gear
- Physiological sighProtocolFREE, no cost
Two inhales through the nose, one long exhale; heart rate drops within seconds
- Quitting social mediaHabitFREE, no cost
Deleting the accounts rather than trying to use them less
- Rewriting notes by handHabitFREE, no cost
Copying the same material out longhand, daily, until it sticks
- Six-page narrative memoProtocolFREE, no cost
A written memo read silently at the start of the meeting, in place of slides
- The 40% ruleProtocolFREE, no cost
The idea that when your mind says you are done, you are at about 40 percent
- The 85 percent ruleProtocolFREE, no cost
Working at about 85 percent effort so relaxation and form do the rest
- Transcendental MeditationProtocol$$$Expensive: Several hundred dollars and up.
Silent mantra repetition, about 20 minutes twice a day, taught in a paid course
- Vision settingProtocolFREE, no cost
Write down a specific picture of who you are becoming, then filter decisions through it
- Water before coffeeHabitFREE, no cost
A full glass of water on waking, before the first cup of coffee
- Written goal sheetHabitFREE, no cost
Goals written down, in numbers, and kept where you see them every morning
Then, things you can buy
Supplements, gear, books and apps filed under focus, ranked the same way: by how many tracked stacks include them.
- CaffeineSupplement$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
The most-used performance drug in the world, timing-sensitive
- +5
- Creatine monohydrateSupplement$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
The best-evidenced supplement in sports nutrition, taken at 3-5g a day
- +5
- Omega-3 (EPA/DHA)Supplement$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Fish or algae oil, often 1-2g EPA daily
- +1
- Deep WorkBook$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
The case that uninterrupted concentration is a rare and valuable skill
- Business AdventuresBook$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
John Brooks's twelve New Yorker stories about Wall Street and 1960s corporate America
- Digital MinimalismBook$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
A philosophy for using much less technology, on purpose
- Kindle e-readerGear$$$Mid: Roughly $50 to $500, or up to $50/month.
E-ink reader that makes a daily reading habit easy to keep
- Waking UpApp$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Sam Harris's meditation course, heavy on the theory as well as practice
- Website and app blockerApp$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Software that makes distracting sites genuinely unavailable on a schedule
- Alpha-GPCSupplement$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Choline source taken before workouts or hard cognitive work
- AnkiAppFREE, no cost
Spaced repetition flashcards: ugly, free, and extremely effective
- Be Useful: Seven Tools for LifeBook$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Arnold Schwarzenegger's 2023 book on vision, work, failure and giving back
- Flow: The Psychology of Optimal ExperienceBook$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's 1990 study of total absorption and what makes it happen
- HeadspaceApp$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Guided meditation app built around ten-minute sessions, voiced by Andy Puddicombe
- Heavily MeditatedBook$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Dave Asprey on shortcuts to deep meditative states with breath, feedback and pain
- L-theanineSupplement$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Amino acid from tea used for calm focus, or with caffeine
- MCT oil (C8)Supplement$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Caprylic acid from coconut oil, taken for a quick rise in ketones
- Moonwalking with EinsteinBook$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Joshua Foer's year training for the US Memory Championship, and what memory really is
- Paper time-block plannerGear$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
A physical notebook for planning the day hour by hour
- Poor Charlie's AlmanackBook$$$Mid: Roughly $50 to $500, or up to $50/month.
Charlie Munger's speeches and essays on mental models, misjudgment and how to think
- ReadwiseApp$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Syncs your highlights and resurfaces them a few at a time
- ReveriApp$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Self-hypnosis sessions for sleep, stress and pain
- Source CodeBook$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Bill Gates's 2025 memoir of childhood, Lakeside, Harvard and the start of Microsoft
- The 5 Second RuleBook$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Mel Robbins's first book, on the countdown that gets you moving
- The Anxious GenerationBook$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Jonathan Haidt on what smartphones and social media did to childhood after 2010
- The Bulletproof DietBook$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Dave Asprey's high-fat, low-toxin eating plan, and the origin of the butter coffee
- The Great CoursesApp$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Recorded lecture series on history, science and economics, on disc or by subscription
- The Headspace Guide to Meditation and MindfulnessBook$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Andy Puddicombe's plain-language introduction to a ten-minute daily practice
- The Inner Game of TennisBook$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Timothy Gallwey's 1974 classic on quieting self-criticism to perform under pressure
- The ONE ThingBook$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Gary Keller and Jay Papasan on the one priority that makes everything else easier
- Thinking, Fast and SlowBook$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Kahneman's map of the two systems behind your judgments
- This Is WaterBook$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
The Kenyon commencement speech by the author of Infinite Jest, about a 15-minute read
- WordleAppFREE, no cost
The daily five-letter word puzzle, one game a day, scores shared with friends
Nothing on this site is medical advice. It is a record of what public figures have said they do, which is not the same as evidence that it works, and definitely not the same as advice for you. Talk to a clinician before changing anything about your sleep, diet, training or medication. How this works.