Saturday is a good day to think about productivity. Not so much because I think we need to be overly productive on the weekends. In fact, the weekend is a great time to be intentionally unproductive with a novel, some sunshine, and a good story on Netflix in the evening. I recommend that approach.

But, I do like to assess my weeks on Saturday - both the one that’s coming to a close and the week to come.

What were my wins?
What could have been done better?
What are my goals for next week?
What tools do I need to complete those goals?

So I often write about tools for being more productive on Saturday.

But here’s the danger: Productivity tools are bountiful. They are everywhere. Ubiquitous.

There are paper planners and digital calendars. There are thousands of to-do list apps and hundreds of systems. Productivity hacks and tips and tricks are in such abundance on the Internet that the productivity industry has become its own genre. We spend billions of dollars trying to hack our way out of the land of procrastination.

But none of these things are worth much without this one thing.

Here’s the productivity tool that you need. You need this more than notebooks or task lists or thousand dollar systems.

Focus.

It’s the superpower. The secret sauce. The lynchpin ability.

If you can consistently focus on one thing - concentrated effort without distraction - for 4-6 hours every day, you will exponentially outproduce everyone around you. Even if they’re working 8-10 hours per day.

Learn to focus. Learn to be undistracted. You don’t need a lot beyond this to do pretty much anything.