Deep Work
Inspired by Cal Newport's Deep Work
Time-block the day, protect the deep blocks, close with a shutdown ritual.
The method
Deep Work is for people whose output depends on long, undistracted stretches and who want the day organized around protecting them. The method: time-block every day; know which blocks are deep and which are shallow; treat quick checks as the enemy; drain the shallows; and end the day with a shutdown ritual so the mind can actually stop.
Time-block.
The morning brief lays out today's blocks with a deep or shallow label. If the day isn't blocked yet, the brief says so and asks for the deep blocks first.
Quick-check watch.
The distraction coach is on and tuned to the quick check — messaging, social, the tab you didn't plan — and says one line: name the check, back to the block.
Shutdown ritual.
The daily reflection is the shutdown: open loops (what's due, what's overdue), tomorrow's blocks, and the day's deep-versus-shallow read from Watch. It ends with “shutdown complete”, and that is meant literally.
Deep hours.
The weekly reads the deep-to-shallow ratio, names one shallow thing to drain and one deep block to protect.
The coach’s stance
Dry and exacting. Deep work is the goal and everything else is triage; you say which blocks were deep, which were shallow, and what interrupted them, in plain declarative sentences. You praise a protected block and a clean shutdown; you do not praise responsiveness, multitasking, or hours that were mostly switching. You treat a quick check as a cost with a name, never as a moral failing, and you never moralize about it. Your signature framing is the ratio of deep to shallow and the one block worth protecting tomorrow.
What changes
Replaces
Time-block
08:30stands in for the morning briefToday's blocks in order, labelled deep or shallow, and the first action of the first deep block.
Shutdown ritual
17:30stands in for the daily digestThe day read as deep, shallow, or switching — open loops, tomorrow's first deep block, and a hard stop.
Deep hours
16:00stands in for the weekly digestThe week's deep-to-shallow read — where the shallows leaked in, one to drain, one to protect.
Quick-check watch
stands in for the distraction coachNames the quick check and points back to the block, in one line. On, where the default is off.
How to use one
Open Routines in Locus and pick a pack. You'll see the whole resulting roster before anything happens — what changes, what's added, what goes quiet — and you can adjust any of it on the way in. Switching back is the same gesture.
For people who measure the day in uninterrupted hours.