DeepWorkCalTools / quick and private
Look at yesterday.
Plan tomorrow.
Three short tools and a printable page. Nothing you type leaves this browser.
Shallow work audit
List what you did yesterday and tag each item. Deep means demanding work you stayed with. Shallow is routine logistics, and reactive is anything someone else's request started. It takes about two minutes, and nothing is saved.
Tomorrow, protect
Put it in the planner ↗Attention residue, in 30 seconds
Answer eight tiny questions while switching between two kinds, then eight more doing one kind at a time, and notice how each round felt. “Attention residue” is the business professor Sophie Leroy's term, discussed in Newport's Deep Work: part of your attention stays with the task you just left.
Ready when you are
Two rounds of eight. Answer as quickly as feels comfortable.
Did the mixed round feel bumpier? Many people notice a small stall each time the kind of question changes. That stall is the idea Leroy named.
This illustrates an idea and measures nothing. One try on one device, with questions this easy, can't show a real effect, and the times on screen vary for many reasons.
Shutdown ritual generator
Pick the tools you use and get a four-step end-of-day checklist. It's adapted from the shutdown ritual Newport describes in Deep Work, which ends with him saying “Shutdown complete.”
My shutdown ritual
A printable blank page
Our own one-page layout: the one thing that matters today, a 7:00 to 19:00 ruler in quarter hours, a second column for redrawing the plan when the day changes, and a shutdown checklist at the bottom. It's a practice sheet, not a copy of Cal Newport's planner. For that, get the Time-Block Planner.
Download the page (PDF, US Letter) It prints well on A4 too.
Then make the plan.
The audit shows where yesterday went, and the planner is where tomorrow gets its shape.
Plan a focused day ↗