Goggles are an important first step -- if the wavelength is long-enough, you can sometimes get away with quite-inexpensive goggles. The short focal length help

Goggles are an important first step -- if the wavelength is long-enough, you can sometimes get away with quite-inexpensive goggles. The short focal length helps, but you're starting with a lot of power. Careful with specular reflections, especially off of concave objects that might refocus the beam. The hard part with these things are that the beams are invisible and the damage (especially at near-visible wavelengths) can be instant without a lot of power.