DeepWorkCalMake room for focus.

A field guide to a focused day

Your attention
needs a place.

A meeting here. A message there. The work you care about keeps slipping between them. Give it a space on your calendar.

Plan a focused day

Inspired by Cal Newport's Deep Work.
An independent guide, with exercises of our own.

01 / Watch a day take shape

From scattered
to planned.

  1. Stage 1 of 6

    A fragmented morning

    Without a plan, other people fill the morning for you. A meeting lands at 10:30, someone asks for a quick sync, and the draft you meant to write waits for a gap.

  2. Stage 2 of 6

    Notifications

    Each message is small. Answer them as they arrive and the morning breaks into pieces too short for demanding work. We drew this picture to illustrate the idea; nobody's morning was measured.

  3. Stage 3 of 6

    The draft keeps slipping

    By lunch the draft has moved to the afternoon, and by mid-afternoon it has moved to “later.” Nobody chose that. It kept losing to whatever felt more urgent.

  4. Stage 4 of 6

    Blocks appear

    Give every task a time. Newport calls this time blocking: assigning your work to blocks of the day. Once everything has a place, you can see that the draft only got the last stretch of the afternoon.

    Read Cal's explanation ↗

  5. Stage 5 of 6

    A planned day

    Move the draft to a protected block first thing and put the small jobs together. Lunch and an hour of flexible time are in the plan too, so a surprise has somewhere to go.

  6. Stage 6 of 6

    The stopping time

    Pick a time to stop that you can keep. In Deep Work, Newport describes a shutdown ritual that ends the workday. Our version saves the last half hour for writing down tomorrow's first step.

    About the book ↗

An illustrative day we drew for teaching. It is not a measured productivity comparison.

02 / Know what needs your attention

Some work needs
an uninterrupted stretch.

In Newport's terminology, deep work asks for sustained concentration on demanding work. Shallow work includes necessary logistics that are easier to do amid interruptions. Both need time.

Deep work, in everyday words
The task you can only move forward when you stay with it for a while: a proof, a proposal, a draft, a design.
Shallow work, in everyday words
Replies, forms, scheduling and filing. Somebody has to do them, and they take less sustained thought.

The definitions come from Newport's Deep Work. The three days below are our own examples. Each one protects a focus block, groups the admin, leaves room for breaks and reactive duties, and stops at a set time.

A

A student

Deep: Working through a hard problem set with your notes open and your phone in your bag.

Shallow: Course announcements, timetable emails and the group chat.

Before: the problem set gets two short tries between messages.

Before

  • 08:20–08:45 · Practice problems
  • 08:45–09:00 · Group chat
  • 09:00–10:00 · Lecture
  • 10:10–10:30 · Timetable emails
  • 10:35–10:55 · Rewrite lecture notes
  • 11:15–11:40 · Problems, second try
  • 12:05–12:30 · Lunch
  • 13:00–14:00 · Study group

After

  • 08:00–09:00 · Practice problems
  • 09:00–10:00 · Lecture
  • 10:00–10:30 · Walk
  • 10:30–11:00 · Messages, together
  • 11:00–12:00 · Rewrite lecture notes
  • 12:00–13:00 · Lunch
  • 13:00–14:00 · Study group
  • 14:00–14:45 · Catch-up time
  • Stop at 14:45

After: one protected hour first, messages answered together, then a walk.

B

A day with meetings

Deep: Thinking through a project proposal before anyone else needs your attention.

Shallow: Replies, scheduling and the small follow-ups each meeting creates.

Before: the proposal gets three twenty-minute gaps and email fills the rest.

Before

  • 09:00–09:25 · Email check
  • 09:35–09:55 · Project proposal
  • 10:00–10:30 · Client call
  • 10:40–11:05 · Email check
  • 11:30–12:00 · Team meeting
  • 12:05–12:25 · Proposal, 20 min
  • 13:05–13:25 · Scheduling
  • 14:00–15:00 · Planning review
  • 15:30–16:00 · 1:1
  • 16:10–16:30 · Proposal, again

After

  • 09:00–10:00 · Project proposal
  • 10:00–10:30 · Client call
  • 10:30–11:00 · Replies, together
  • 11:30–12:00 · Team meeting
  • 12:00–13:00 · Lunch
  • 13:00–13:30 · Scheduling
  • 14:00–15:00 · Planning review
  • 15:00–15:30 · Reactive time
  • 15:30–16:00 · 1:1
  • 16:00–16:30 · Wrap up
  • Stop at 16:30

After: an hour before the first call, replies grouped, and reactive time kept free.

C

Creative work

Deep: Staying with a scene, sketch or composition long enough to try an idea properly.

Shallow: Invoices, file clean-up and checking feeds.

Before: admin goes first and the scene gets two short visits.

Before

  • 10:00–10:40 · Invoices
  • 10:40–10:55 · Checking feeds
  • 11:00–11:30 · Sketch the opening scene
  • 11:35–11:50 · Checking feeds
  • 12:00–12:45 · File clean-up
  • 13:00–13:20 · Lunch outside
  • 13:30–14:00 · Scene, another try
  • 14:30–15:00 · Client call

After

  • 10:00–12:30 · Sketch the opening scene
  • 12:30–13:30 · Lunch outside
  • 13:30–14:15 · Invoices and files
  • 14:30–15:00 · Client call
  • 15:00–16:00 · Revise yesterday’s pages
  • 16:00–16:45 · Room for revisions
  • Stop at 16:45

After: the scene gets the morning and admin waits for one afternoon block.

Original examples interpreting the distinction in Deep Work. The times are illustrative.

03 / The people in the book

Jung built a tower.
Rowling booked a hotel.

Newport's Deep Work is full of people who rearranged their days to think. We retold nine of their stories, plus three about solitude from his Digital Minimalism.

How the deep workers did it ↗

04 / People who block their time

What it's like, in other people's words.

These are short quotes from public blog posts by people we don't know, linked to the originals. They are not endorsements of this site.

05 / Leave room for a real day

A plan you can change
is a plan you can use.

Keep breaks, reactive duties and a realistic stopping time in view. If a meeting runs over, redraw the remaining day. Newport explicitly allows revisions; our planner lets you move a block and try again.

Learn the method ↗ Try it on your own day ↗