Focus is a filter, not a muscle. Stop trying to brute force yourself into focus. Decide what you don't want to do.
Table of Contents
Stop Fighting Your Brain, Start Using It
Most founders think productivity is about discipline. It’s not.
You don’t need more willpower. You need systems that make focus automatic. If you’ve got ADHD or just feel constantly distracted, this is your playbook to get into flow, protect your energy, and move faster than ever before.
1. Make a Not-To-Do List
Success isn’t about doing more. It’s about doing less of the wrong stuff.
My productivity starts by ruthlessly filtering out what doesn’t move the needle. Here’s how I do it:
What Goes on Your Not-To-Do List:
Low-value tasks: Delegate or automate anything below your pay grade.
Bad habits and vices: Eliminate snooze buttons, video games, and energy-killing habits.
Energy vampires: Cut out people who drain you instead of fuel you.
A new yes is a no to your dream. A no is a yes to your goals.
2. Create Focus Triggers
Flow state isn’t magic. It’s engineered. You’ve got to design environments and rituals that shift your brain into gear.
Set Your Focus Triggers:
Location: I’ve got a dedicated chair or room for strategy, creation, or goal-setting.
Sound: I use playlists, binaural beats, or ambient noise. Headphones = signal to focus.
Routine: My days are structured like world-class athletes. Rhythm creates results.
Flow state isn’t random. It’s designed.
3. Start on Hard Mode
You want momentum? Then stop taking the easy route. The biggest productivity boost comes from tackling the hardest task first.
Action Plan:
Identify your ‘one thing’: The most important activity that fuels everything else.
Do deep work first: Mornings are gold. No email, no socials, just focused output.
Avoid digital noise: What you consume early sets the tone for your entire day.
If you do everything that’s easy, it’s like starting your meal with dessert. You’ll be too full for the stuff that matters.
4. Be Hard to Reach
You can’t scale impact if everyone can ping you anytime. Build intentional barriers between you and distraction.
Make Yourself Hard to Interrupt:
| Strategy | How to Execute |
|---|---|
| Kill Notifications | Only my assistant and spouse get through. Everyone else waits. |
| Schedule Responses | Calendar blocks for email and text replies protect focus and create flow. |
| Use Visual Signals | Headphones mean “do not disturb.” Teach your environment how to treat you. |
| Physically Relocate | Cabin, coffee shop, or conference room. Change your space to block distraction. |
Your inbox is nothing more than a public to-do list of other people’s priorities on your time.
5. Turn Up the Pressure
Deadlines drive results. No pressure means no progress.
Boost Performance with These Two Levers:
Shorten timelines: Set hard, specific due dates. Not “end of the week,” but “Wednesday 3 PM.”
Increase the stakes: Make non-negotiable commitments. Tell your team. Bet on it.
Most people don’t have any downside if they don’t do it. And because of that, they don’t do it.
6. Train Your Algorithm
Your social feeds aren’t just entertainment. They’re programming your brain. Either design your inputs, or get hijacked.
Reprogram Your Feed:
I search and comment on content I want more of.
I unfollow or mute distractions. Even friends.
I teach what I learn. That locks it in.
My feed works for me. I don’t work for it.
7. Design Your Perfect Week
Multitasking is a lie. Real productivity comes from intentional design.
Build Your Week Around These Four Levers:
Big Rocks First: Schedule non-negotiables like workouts, family time, and strategy.
Theme Your Days: Assign days to areas like marketing, meetings, or creation.
Batch & Block: Group similar tasks. Use 30–45 minute focus blocks.
Plan for Energy: Know when you do your best work and schedule accordingly.
Multitasking just means screwing up multiple things at once.
8. Gamify Your Work
Games are addictive because they make progress visible. Bring that same feedback loop into your business life.
How to Gamify Your Work:
Track your streaks: Daily action builds visible momentum.
Set rewards: Tie milestones to real-world perks like vacations or gear.
Make it visual: Use whiteboards, dashboards, or printed trackers.
Do it with others: Bring others into the game. Shared momentum is powerful.
You don’t get distracted because you’re bored. You get distracted because you can’t see your progress.
9. Manage Your Energy
Focus comes from energy. And energy is created, not stumbled upon.
Two Energy Modes You Need:
Proactive Boost: I start my day with movement, reading, and no decisions. This is how I get into flow.
Reactive Boost: When I’m drained, I reset with movement. Pushups. Walks. Scooter meetings.
You don’t have energy. You create energy.
10. Find Your Flow
You are not broken. You just need your version of productivity.
Build Your Flow System:
Reflect weekly. What’s working? What’s not?
Tweak your schedule like you would a software update.
Track energy trends, not just task volume.
Some things used to give me energy. Now they don’t. And that’s okay. You’re allowed to iterate.
Take Control of Your Focus Starting Today
You don’t need to work harder. You need to work smarter with intention.
These hacks aren’t theories. They’re battlefield-tested. I’ve scaled multiple 8-figure companies while navigating ADHD. You can too. Pick one or two of these and start today. Don’t try to do all ten. Build your system. Design your energy. Train your focus.
The future version of you, the one with momentum, clarity, and scale, is waiting on the other side.
Frequently Asked Questions
How can ADHD entrepreneurs stay focused without medication?
Many founders with ADHD rely too heavily on discipline. Instead, structure your environment to trigger focus automatically. I use location, sound, and routines as focus triggers to make flow state accessible by design.
What’s the best time of day to do deep work?
For most people, especially founders with families, mornings are prime time. Your mornings are your most precious resource. Protect that time and use it to create, not consume.
How do I stop distractions during work hours?
Turn off notifications, use visual signals like headphones, and physically change your location if needed. Be easy to find, hard to reach. That’s how I built deep work into my day.
Why do I lose motivation so quickly during the week?
You probably can’t see your progress. Use gamification tactics…track streaks, set milestones, and make it visual. When progress is visible, momentum becomes automatic.
Can I really be productive without multitasking?
Absolutely. In fact, you’ll get more done by focusing on one thing at a time. Multitasking is just a fast lane to burnout. Theme your days, batch tasks, and stay in flow.
More Resources
Tools & Resources Mentioned
Binaural Beats Apps – Audio engineered to help you lock in focus fast.
Noise-Canceling Headphones – A non-negotiable in high-distraction environments.
Physical whiteboards or Kanban boards – Visual tools to track and celebrate progress.
Calendar blocking tools – tools like Google Calendar help automate task batching and deep work zones.
Full Transcript
How to Be So Productive it Feels ILLEGAL – YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSGt_rhu49U
Transcript:
(00:00) the most productive people in the world they don’t rely on discipline and brute force to stay focused they found hacks to trick their brain into this superhuman level of productivity so I’m going to share with you 10 hacks that will make you more focused even if you have crippling ADHD like I do these are the strategies that I use to go from an ADHD mess to a hyperfocused CEO you can start using these today to stop fighting against your brain and start using it as a superpower so with that being said these are the 10 hacks to unlock insane
(00:31) focus starting with hack number one make a notto-do list here’s my philosophy focus is a filter not a muscle stop trying to brute force yourself into focus decide what you don’t want to do so that you can make decisions quicker if every new decision comes into your life and you have to sit there with the mental overload and brain powder try to make a good decision because you haven’t set up a filter it’s going to drain your energy to me a new yes is a no to your dream and a no is a yes to your goals if you think about the most successful
(01:02) people you see that success is a subtractive process not an additive process you don’t do more to win you do less but you make the things you say no to the right yeses so when people ask me like “Hey Dan what did you do to be successful to drive those cars or fly around on your plane?” Uh it’s what I don’t do i don’t drink i don’t gamble i don’t play video games i don’t vape i don’t do a bunch of stuff that would impede me from winning and it requires that to have the level of focus we’re talking about the way I think about it
(01:31) you know that game Plinko where you have like these balls you drop at the top and it hits all these different pins and it goes all over the place that’s how most people live their life what I want you to do is break out all the other options which is those pins drop the ball go straight to the middle if you think about each one of those as being a energy unit of focus then you would just literally focus and stack and focus and stack instead of spreading yourself thin across so many different options so what
(01:54) goes on the notto-do list for me number one is lowv value task anything that I can pay anybody else to do for a little bit amount of money or just use an app to get brought to me or get done I’m not doing it number two is bad habit and vices some of you guys have bad habits of not confronting people that say about you some of you have vices like you literally lay in bed and hit the snooze button 15 times before you get out of bed those things have to go the third is energy vampires when I’m interacting with somebody they either give me energy
(02:21) or they take my energy the people that take my energy see you which brings us to hack number two create focus triggers most people wait for inspiration to do work or hope they’ll magically get in the zone randomly to start doing the work i create a structure to get myself into flow so that it is by design not random see flow state isn’t random it’s designed and when you’re in it guess what i don’t think about going to the bathroom i don’t worry about what other people think of me i don’t worry if my work’s very good when I’m in flow state
(02:52) it produces the best work possible the way I quickly get into flow is I create focus triggers so for example the location the chair that I sit in to do my reading to outline my goals to ideulate i mean even when I go off sites with my wife to plan our quarterly planning our year in planning those are triggers for us to focus on designing our future not worry about what happened this week or next week or anything like that the second is sound when I need to focus I have to have music playing it’s a vibe it’s a strategy deep work I’ll
(03:24) sometimes put on playlists that have no words or I’ll use a special app that uses binaural beats to actually improve my ability to focus headphones are a must cuz I can’t be distracted with other people’s noise and the last one is routines when you look at worldclass athletes and you think about how they visualize how they warm up the way they structure their day their week their month it is a rhythm it is a rhythm of success and it is a routine and a lot of people think well that would be boring you know what’s not boring having the
(03:52) resources to do what you want when you want with who you want and if that requires some level of routine sign me up which brings us to hack number three start on hard mode this one is wild is that a lot of people try to start easy let’s make it easy let’s build momentum how about stop trying to create momentum with easy wins i think if you want to focus and get things done attack it like go all in like literally start on hard mode make it hard if you do everything that’s easy it’s kind of like starting your meal with dessert sure you might
(04:26) enjoy it and it might fill you up but it’s not going to give you the nutritions you need to actually build your body and you’ll be too full to eat the real food so to me we start with the thing that’s the hardest not the easiest to do in many ways the hardest task is to stop picking the easiest task so to dial this in and really get your focus we have to do a few things first off we have to choose the one thing what’s the one thing for most business owners it’s marketing for most individuals it’s working out but what’s the one thing
(04:53) that if you do first as soon as you wake up or you sit down at your desk that it will set you up to win that it will build that confidence to create momentum that will give you the vibe of success that one thing if you just nail it out of the park every time it’s kind of like that first domino that you know if you get that right the rest of the dominoes will fall down that’s where we start then what we do is we do deep work blocks for me it’s first thing in the morning i used to be a late night guy and you can do that too but as soon as I
(05:25) had human alarm clocks aka kids my mornings became my most precious time because that’s when I create connected to my creator when I think of like writing outlining these videos creating videos coming up with new AI companies to start strategy work it has to happen first thing in the morning in my deep work blocks and it all happens before checking my email social media or anything else i can’t tell you how my energy is affected by the things I consume and if I accidentally go down a rabbit hole and see stuff or check
(05:55) things and all of a sudden ah I have this like oh crap feeling and now I’m supposed to go dream ideate design something cool but I’m in this headsp space of like no you know what I mean my day is going from bad meeting to bad meeting I love the people I work with but nobody brings me anything other than problems to try to resolve so I can’t check my email before I do the right work You can’t be like reading comments on your social media feed about what people think of you before you go sit down and create more videos to help
(06:23) people cuz you’re going to be like “Oh screw that person i’m not even doing this video anymore.” See the challenge with that which brings us to hack number four be hard to reach when I was sitting down and editing my book Buy Back Your Time I had my buddy Chris and we got in my car and we drove to the mountains there was no internet there was no connectivity and we stayed in a cabin and we got our laptops out and we edited literally for 16 hours a day we did it for 5 days we had a rhythm of working out editing lunch editing dinner editing
(06:51) pass out the reason we’re able to do that is cuz we are disconnected from distractions see some of you make it too easy to be interrupted the notifications are going off the phone’s going off your inbox is like blowing up i mean your inbox is nothing more than a public to-do list of other people’s priorities on your time my philosophy is you want to be easy to find all over the internet but hard to reach the only way to make that work is to use these strategies the first is turn off all your notifications i mean go into the app under
(07:20) notifications and I dare you to swipe them off the only two people in my life that can get through to me is my wife and my assistant other than that everybody else can wait second thing is a schedule time to respond see I do reply to people text messages etc i have it in my calendar so it’s dedicated that way it’s a forcing function if I got 60 minutes I’m spending that 60 minutes heads down i was standing in the hot tub behind me earlier replying to all my text messages so call that net time no extra time post-workout hot tub sitting
(07:51) there text messaging creating momentum in my life figure out how to put both of those together the third is use focus signals so for me I have my headphones on please don’t talk to me unless it’s an emergency i do have a rule that if you come in my office and I’m on a call you then have to present on your call so my kids have been on board meetings they’ve been on pitch meetings they literally if you’re in the room and you’re asking me a question I’m not going to introduce you to the people I’m talking to my kids are my priority but
(08:17) they know if the doors close and unless it’s an emergency they don’t come in it is so hard for me to focus to get in the zone that when I’m in it I got to protect myself and the fourth one is just remove yourself i have team members that choose on certain days I don’t want to come to work cuz I’m going to sit at home no distractions no conversations no taps on the shoulders no got a seconds no nothing just boom get it done other people they go to coffee shops here’s an advanced move don’t take your power cable with you that way when you’re
(08:45) there and you know your battery is slowly dying slowly down slowly down it’ll force you to get that work done but coffee shops are great other offices are great you can literally go to your buddy’s office and say “Hey man can I hang out in your conference room?” Which brings us to hack number five turn up the pressure so imagine this you’ve got to move out of your place but you got 3 months to move out think about how you would approach that you would probably take your time walk around slowly get distracted easily pack sometimes you
(09:10) wouldn’t move with a sense of purpose but if I told you you had 3 days to get out of your place or lose all your stuff you wouldn’t waste a minute that’s what it means to turn up the pressure there’s two ways that you can do this to yourself before the world does it to you the first is to shorten the timeline you see there’s this thing called Parkinson’s law that states the work will expand to the available time given to it which means if you give yourself a lot of time you’ll take a lot of time when I’m talking to people on my team
(09:35) and they’re like “Yeah I’ll get that to you at the end of the day or the end of the week or the end of the month,” I’m like “No no no why not 3 PM why not Wednesday why not the 10th of the month?” Most people default to just giving themselves arbitrary timelines that don’t force the creativity and the focus to get more done the second is to increase the stakes what happens if you don’t see then you don’t have an out there’s this woman on my team Jen who wanted to lose weight she was sick of it she told the whole team she asked me for
(10:03) my help i said “Do you want the real stake?” She said “Yes.” I said “Cool this is how it works if you don’t hit your goal by a certain date you can’t stay on the team.” You hit that goal by then I cannot go on that if you don’t hit your goal you can’t stay on the team shake my hand hold on no make it a non-negotiable and she went “Oh no well that’s what I’m saying is like I care about you i want to see you win you ask me for my help.
(10:26) ” That’s real stakes see most people don’t have any downside if they don’t do and because of that they don’t do which brings us to hack number six train your algorithm what I find fascinating is the billion-dollar tech companies these giants hire the world’s best psychologists to design software with one purpose and it’s to distract you to get you to come back in the app i’m talking they run split tests on the red for the notification jewel they’ll run AB tests on the message of the notification they send to your phone all
(10:58) to get you back and distract you however you can fight against it see I actually use my social media feed to feed my brain and this is how I do it first off I teach it my preferences i search for things I want to learn about i leave a comment on the videos that I find interesting and that tells the algorithm I’m engaged second is I unfollow any account or mute friends that are not contributing to the areas I want to learn or get better at and I’m unapologetic about it because my feed works for me i don’t work for it and the
(11:27) third is integrate what I learn so there’s one thing to learn something see something save thing i’m saying share it and more importantly teach it when you teach other people you will learn completely different which brings us to hack number seven design your perfect week this one is going to shatter some of your beliefs but multitasking doesn’t work it’s crazy but it takes 23 minutes on average to refocus after your distraction so when you’re doing work you got to fight for that focus the funny way I like to think about it is
(11:56) multitasking it just means screwing up multiple things at once so this is what I suggest to create your perfect week the first area is start with the big rocks these are the non-negotiables these are the things that you know that if you get done everything else will be good this is the date nights the workouts the reading time the strategy meetings the weekly rhythms with your teams the best practices for the best life the second area is understanding that theming your days for different things like marketing sales strategy
(12:26) one-on- ons will help you understand where to put things in your life on what days so it’s not a decision every time the third area is batch and block tasks together that ability to take your content creation or all your conversations and batch them together and block it in your calendar into 30 or 45 minute meetings is a game changer and the most important is plan around your energy not just your time i know there’s certain types of tasks I do in the morning that fuels me to the next level of task that fuels me to the afternoon
(12:54) that fuels me to the nighttime with my family and if I did them out of sequence I wouldn’t be good for anybody i wasn’t going to do this but it would be probably pretty of me not to do it essentially if you want my perfect week template what I use to structure my week every day just find me on Instagram message me the word perfect and I’ll send you the direct link to the dock no opt-in no email my gift to you which brings us to hack number eight gify your work the reason why video games are so addictive is because they have levels
(13:22) and you visually see your progress when you’re playing them and what I’ve learned in life new levels new devils and it’ll make you want to progress when you understand you’re getting better so design your life where you can measure the wins you don’t get distracted because you’re bored you get distracted because you can’t see your progress progress is happiness anybody that’s struggling in life right now I know that if they made a little bit of progress in their life they would just feel better so let’s gify our work so that we show
(13:49) up with focus and attention number one we got to track our streaks jelly Roll came out with this great song about winning streaks and I just love that philosophy that if you measure yourself doing something and you can go day after day after day and just make it a simple win that day if it’s 10 sales calls a day how many days can you go in a row my buddy Ben has been working out i think he said the other day 1,200 days in a row he’s worked out and he’s done his unrequired workout that’s wild the second is you got to create milestones
(14:20) for the rewards this is my favorite cuz I like to buy things and go on trips i like to use milestones as a marker for rewarding myself like vacations with my family or my friends as a way to have something to build towards the third is make it visual i’m a fan of technology but I will tell you when you have that in front of your face as a poster on your backdrop on your computer put it on your whiteboard I don’t care where it is but get it outside of your brain and put it out in front of you so you can see it
(14:45) every time that makes it fun the fourth is do it together the more people you can enroll into the process of winning you will create focus around your outcome like you’ve never felt because the truth is is you’ll do more for other people especially if you’re the person that got them to start that competition or that weight loss thing than you will do for yourself so having that group of people to do it together with is a pro move which brings us to hack number nine manage your energy exhaust the body tame the mind if you follow me on Instagram
(15:14) and if you don’t you should because I’m a good time you will see me post almost daily exhaust the body tame the mind for me my energy is a byproduct of my habits and if I’ve got things going on in my mind and I need to focus I got to first exhaust my body my morning routine is where I create my proactive energy boost the first thing I do is focus on my process for how I wake up what I’ve decided to do it’s in my calendar i move my body i read my books i ramp up my focus so that I can get my best work done i’m all about energy and there’s
(15:46) two ways that I make sure that my day gets the best of me first off is a proactive energy boost that is how I proactively start my day this is my morning routine this is the philosophy of prioritizing the pump getting it on the calendar making sure my stuff’s prepped if I got to work out I put that stuff out the night before so when I wake up it’s ready to go i don’t have to have decision fatigue the other one is reactive energy boost this is when I feel drained maybe my eyeballs hurt i don’t know why sometimes that happens
(16:12) and I just got to reset i mean the other day I was giving a talk and a guy asked me he’s like “Hey man how do you deal with like feeling lethargic and tired and like you’ve got the weight of the world on you?” And I’m like “Dude get up front do some push-ups.” And I did the push-ups with him and we sat there and I said “Keep going keep going keep going until he failed.
(16:29) ” And when he failed I said “On your knees.” And he went on his knees and then we were all done i said “Now how do you feel?” He’s like “9 out of 10.” I said “That took 46 seconds.” Most people don’t realize they can reset their energy cuz you don’t have energy you create energy i can prove it if I told you you had $10 million cash in the bank taxes paid how would you feel that feeling where’d that come from up here the other thing I love to do is walking meetings or scooter meetings all my one-on- ones are done on a scooter why a
(16:56) lot more fun which brings us to hack number 10 find your flow you see I grew up thinking I was broken i was told I was broken needed medication put on rolin when I was 11 and what I’ve realized it wasn’t that my mind was broken is that I just needed to find a different way to work that worked for me so here’s what I know your journey will be very unique nobody else can tell you how to do it i can give you some thoughts but you got to figure it out for you take the time to reflect journal what you’re thinking about what’s
(17:26) working what’s not when I did this I felt really good and then constantly tweak that’s what I do i look at my calendar because it’s designed i said “That felt good.” And some things used to give me energy that was very productive and all of a sudden now based on where I’m at in life it doesn’t work for me anymore and you’re allowed to iterate you’re allowed to take stuff out and try new things on like new clothes does it fit well if it doesn’t take it off go find something different the big idea though is don’t give up don’t give
(17:53) up on you i know that if you master the ability to find your energy your focus and your flow your dreams exist on the other side of that now if you want to learn the eight habits that will fix 98% of your problems click here and I’ll see you on the other