I like the concept of "work hard, play hard": ruthless concentration at work so I can truly relax when I log off? Sign me up.
Author Cal Newport takes this motto to the extreme with his concept of deep work.
I read Cal's book, Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, back in 2016, and it's been one of the only productivity books that's had a long-standing effect on how I function. I use the framework to plan my entire week—and I credit it for my ability to earn a good living despite working no more than five hours a day.
This guide will give you a primer on deep work, with practical tips to incorporate deep work into your routine—all using my own experiences as inspiration.
Table of contents:
What is deep work?
Deep work means ruthlessly focusing on one particular task with undivided focus. It's a concept coined by Cal Newport, a professor of computer science at Georgetown.
Deep work is the opposite of what most of us do now. If you're anything like me, you'll check your emails every few minutes, browse TikTok while you wait for a meeting to start, or see what's happening on LinkedIn when you need a break from a brain-intensive task.
If you practice deep work, it means you'll cut those habits out and focus on one thing: the most important task at hand, with no distractions and total mental focus. It's not easy, but the impact is worth it.
Deep work vs. shallow work
Cal describes deep work as "professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate."
Here's are some examples of things you can do deep work on:
Creating content
Designing a presentation
Coding software
Writing a book (or reading one!)
Shallow tasks are the opposite: they don't require much mental concentration and rarely make a big impact. Examples include clearing your inbox, scrolling through social media, scheduling meetings, data entry, and organizing your files.
The 4 deep work philosophies
There's no single approach to implementing deep work into your schedule. Creator Cal Newport breaks it down into four philosophies or approaches:
Monastic. This is an all-in approach. It's the most ruthless—you'll need to isolate completely from distraction and focus intensely on a single task or project for several hours a day, many days in a row. It's best if you're working on an urgent and important task. An author, for example, might do a workation to intensely focus on the final edit of their book.
Bimodal. This style splits your week between deep and shallow tasks. It's less intensive than the monastic approach, and it usually looks like picking certain days for deep work and other days for shallow work. For example, you might dedicate two days of the week to deep work and fill the rest of your time with shallow tasks like emails, networking, or meetings.
Rhythmic. This one is kind of like time blocking your deep work: you'll schedule routine time for deep work, maybe a few hours a day. This works best if you want to build a deep work habit.
Journalistic. This approach is the least structured: you do deep work whenever you can and then slot in time for busywork whenever you've got space in your schedule or the need arises. You're most likely to slip on the deep work, but it can be a good way to try out deep work for the first time.
8 tips for incorporating deep work into your schedule
The deep work concept isn't really about work: what you do within this time doesn't matter. It's that word "deep" that matters more—it's about concentration.
But getting into deep work mode is easier said than done. It takes practice—especially if you're used to notifications pinging and drawing your attention away from the task at hand. Which, if you're human, you are.
Here are some tips to ease you in, based on my personal experiences with deep work.
1. Do a deep work audit
Before you try to overhaul your working habits, look at where you're currently spending your time. Record your schedule for the week and detail how you spent each hour. Was it productive? What did you get done? How many times did you get distracted? Which tasks did you find it most difficult to concentrate on and why?
Your deep work audit might find ultradian productivity rhythms, like the fact you're most productive in the early mornings or late at night. It can also help fine-tune your workflows to prevent issues that contribute to a lack of focus.
Case in point: I'm a writer who gets distracted when I'm not learning something new. I got into the habit of checking LinkedIn due to boredom mid-draft. A task that usually takes a few hours would take upwards of six. Once I identified this routine, I added a new step into my writing workflow: a one-hour research block with the sole purpose of learning something new about the topic.
Granted, this extra step requires another deep work block in my calendar—but it makes the writing process much easier. I solved the issue that was driving me toward social media mid-draft, making both blocks instantly more productive. And it's had a domino effect on other aspects of running a business: I've become more of an expert in my niche, and I can charge higher rates for that specialist knowledge.
2. Prioritize tasks
Sometimes it's clear what your focus should be during a deep work block. If you're an author, for example, writing a manuscript that's due with your publisher next week should take priority over posting on social media.
But sometimes, priorities aren't as clear-cut. Writing the manuscript might sit alongside other tasks—like pitching your next book idea and interviewing a subject matter expert—in your project management tool. All three are important.
If you're struggling to identify what to focus on during the session, use a prioritization technique to identify urgent and important tasks to do in your deep work time block.
For example, you could use the Eisenhower matrix to divide tasks into the following quadrants, in order of priority:
Important and urgent (e.g., writing the manuscript before the publisher's deadline)
Important but not urgent (e.g., taking an online course)
Urgent but not important (e.g., responding to emails)
Not urgent or important (e.g., content formatting or basic research.) These tasks can usually be outsourced or automated.
3. Create a deep work routine
To help build your deep work habit, try choosing a location, time, and duration for deep work. For example, you could "eat the frog" and spend the first few hours of every day doing the most important task.
This is a daily routine I use: I put time in my calendar every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning for deep work. I don't check my emails first. I make a coffee, put my noise-canceling headphones on, and make sure my laptop is fully charged. Then I power through as much work as I can (before I let myself get distracted with emails).
Fellow freelance writer Lizzie Davey has a similar approach: "I build my schedule around doing deep work between 8:30 – 11:30. No calls, no nothing during that time except writing."
This aligns with the rhythmic deep work philosophy I outlined earlier, and it can be a great way to get your feet wet with deep work.
4. Combine deep work with time blocking
It's not realistic to spend the entire day doing deep work. Cal suggests an upper limit of four hours of deep work each day. Any more and our attention dwindles, ultimately rendering the concept useless.
Time blocking is a great time management technique if you're a visual person who wants to see where you can slot in those four hours of deep work each day. You can color-code deep work time blocks in red to make it explicitly clear when you need to be distraction-free, or use something like Google Calendar's Focus time feature. (Any other scheduling assistant can help with this too.)
5. Take regular breaks
It's not always possible to be in heads-down deep work mode mode for hours on end. Even Cal Newport understands this: "Deep work is exhausting because it pushes you toward the limit of your abilities," he says. He argues that if you try to squeeze out more and more work, you might end up being less productive in the end.
Get enough rest by applying the deep work concept to time off, too. Resist the urge to check your work emails during the evening or jump on your phone when you can't sleep in the middle of the night. In other words: take the "play hard" part of the "work hard, play hard" motto seriously.
Want to go all in? Take a page out of Bill Gates's book and plan a "think week"—an extended period where he'd do no official work, other than reading papers written by Microsoft employees. This session, which would traditionally be considered unproductive (hasn't he got real work to do?), resulted in world-changing inventions, like Internet Explorer.
6. Join co-working sessions
Deep work requires ruthless concentration—chatting with your colleague about your plans for the weekend makes that impossible. But some people work better when they're not alone. That's why I suggest joining a co-working club. Flow Club, for example, hosts regular co-working sessions where you spend:
5 minutes setting your goals for the session
60 minutes doing deep work with your microphone and sound off
5 minutes reviewing your progress
This rigid structure gives you the productivity boost of working alongside other productive people, while also time-blocking a solid hour to get your most important work done in flow state.
7. Build an environment for deep work
It's easy to blame notifications for ruining our concentration. But you can control those kinds of things. It's up to you to set up your working environment to be distraction-free and make the entire process easier.
Here are some easy ways to avoid distractions:
Use a focus app.
Put on noise-canceling headphones.
Turn on your phone's Do Not Disturb setting.
Find a quiet room where you won't be interrupted.
Quit any apps and close any tabs you won't need.
"To produce at your peak level you need to work for extended periods with full concentration on a single task free from distraction," Cal writes.
8. Train your brain to avoid distractions
Setting time aside for deep work isn't enough—Cal argues that you should train your brain to avoid distractions outside of when you're trying to achieve that flow state. Concentration is a muscle that weakens if you don't practice it.
Put extra effort into breaking habits that fill every spare moment with a distraction. Based on my own experience, these are things like:
Picking up my phone in a five-minute line at the supermarket
Mindlessly scrolling TikTok while waiting for a meeting
Checking in on Instagram when I need a break from work
I took this a step further with a complete digital detox. Going without my devices for the day highlighted how reliant I am on them—and how I used them as a crutch for any mental silence.
Cal explains: "The key here isn't to avoid or even to reduce the total amount of time you spend engaging in distracting behavior, but is instead to give yourself plenty of opportunities throughout your [day] to resist switching to these distractions at the slightest hint of boredom."
Does deep work work for you?
My journey with deep work has evolved to be more than a "work smarter" concept—it's a way of life that's not just benefited me in work mode, but in my personal life too.
I've learned to be more present and "play hard," so that when I come back to my deep work sprint, I'm well rested and set up for success. I no longer have the need to check my emails mid-draft. My schedule is optimized for me.
So I agree with Cal when he says: "To build your working life around the experience of flow produced by deep work is a proven path to deep satisfaction."
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