The ability to focus is becoming something of a rare superpower. The unrelenting array of modern-day distractions and demands vying for our attention has reached unspeakable heights.

Every few minutes, phones buzz, inboxes refill, and headlines refresh, all while people around us make demands and requests, tasks hang over us, and the fatigue of task-switching and decision-making drains our energy. Our days are fragmented into ever-smaller pieces, leaving us busy, reactive, and longing for an escape. These factors conspire to diminish our ability to direct our attention and hold it for any significant length of time.

Focus Is Essential

If we pause long enough to think about how great accomplishments are achieved—whether at home, in business, in the arts, in education, or in philanthropy—we find that it’s through sustained attention. If you want to create or accomplish anything of substance, your ability to focus is not optional. It’s essential.

Just 1 Hour

Rather than lamenting your inability to direct your focus for long periods of time each day, you can retrain your focus by concentrating for an hour each day on your No. 1 priority.

Most of us can ward off distractions and interruptions for 60 minutes. We can silence notifications, close the door, decline the call, or rise an hour earlier. We can ask the world to wait, briefly, just for one hour.

This strategy forces you to do two things. First, you must identify your No. 1 priority right now, which offers you greater clarity about your life and what you’re working toward. Second, you must schedule and protect your distraction-free hour each day. We tend to uphold commitments to ourselves when they’re scheduled.

The Power of an Hour

There is power in limiting your focus to one singular hour. It’s enough time to get into a state of flow, but restricted enough to maintain a healthy sense of urgency and momentum.

You are not staring down an endless afternoon or an unrealistic ideal of total concentration. You are simply stewarding 60 minutes well. Hangups such as perfectionism, delay, and distraction are tossed to the sidelines in favor of making the most of these precious few minutes.

When the hour is precious, you use it. You favor action. You make decisions. You move forward.

The Rest of the Day

Not only does this practice benefit your top priority, but it also makes the rest of the day much better, too. By asking yourself for only an hour of your best attention, you protect the remainder of the day from guilt and mental clutter. You have already honored what matters most. Everything else can be met with less anxiety and pressure, and you can enjoy greater ease and even delight as you handle the demands of the day.

Consistency Is Key

If you do this each and every day, you’ll find yourself far ahead of where your distracted self would have taken you in a few weeks, a month, or certainly a year. Over time, the results compound quietly but dramatically. Eventually, if you wish, you’ll be able to extend the period of time to longer than an hour.

A Few Tips

To improve your odds of success in establishing this new habit, consider the following. Focus music, something calm and instrumental, can be helpful. If you play the same music each time, you can train yourself to lock in when you hear it.

Setting a timer that visually counts down can help you keep track of time and make the most of each second. You might find the final 10 minutes to be the most productive.

Share your plan with everyone you share a space with. Let them know that you can’t be disturbed for this one hour and will be available when the 60 minutes are up. The world won’t stop turning. You’ll see.

Make a rule for yourself that you only consume content (news, podcasts, social media, email, and other online fodder) after you’ve completed your hour. “Create before you consume” can become a mantra. You’ll bring to your hour greater clarity, creativity, and energy.

The Answer to Inaction

Avoidance is a common reaction to feeling overwhelmed. When you avoid, you break promises to yourself and diminish your confidence in your ability to follow through. This simple tweak in your daily routine can combat the desire to avoid challenges and seek comfort.

Each completed hour acts as a small vote of trust in yourself—a reminder that you are capable of taking action and directing your attention, rather than surrendering it to the loudest demand. In this age of distraction, this is no small feat.

Its simplicity is its strength. Over time, this daily hour can become something you look forward to. The act of making a little bit of progress each day will set you on a remarkably positive trajectory. One hour at a time, you’ll find this practice steadily building the future you aim for.

What will you focus on for one hour?