Focused Work – Worksheet Notes
PART ONE: WHAT IS DEEP WORK?
Write out all the tasks you routinely perform as part of your job. (General categories are fine: meetings, emails, site visits, designing, etc.)Edit Note | Go to the Worksheet
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Copy the list above and mark a “D” next to all of the activities that would benefit from deep work.Edit Note | Go to the Worksheet
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PART TWO: HOW MUCH DEEP WORK?
Write down how many hours per week you think you spend on the “deep work” tasks you wrote down above. Estimate if you need to. You might consider actually tracking this time for a week using a tool like RescueTime to get more precise answers.Edit Note | Go to the Worksheet
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What is the ratio of this number compared to your total working hours? (e.g. If you said 15 hours and you work 45 hours per week, the ratio is 1:3, deep-to-shallow.)Edit Note | Go to the Worksheet
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PART THREE: WHEN TO WORK DEEPLY
How will you fit in deep work into your schedule? You can either set aside routine chunks (e.g. mornings 9am-12pm) or adopt an ad-hoc schedule that you create anew each week (or day) depending on your varying commitments. Write down your strategy you plan to use below. Now is also a good time to put these into your calendar as reminders or whichever productivity system you use. Don’t just leave it on this paper to be forgotten later!Edit Note | Go to the Worksheet
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PART FOUR: HOW TO COUNT DEEP WORK
After finishing your first day of deep work, return to this question and repeat the exercise above. If you can’t remember exactly, do your best to estimate.Edit Note | Go to the Worksheet
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PART FIVE: ADJUSTING DEEP WORK
What problems are you experiencing with deep work? Write them out below and accompany them with potential solutions, be them focused on your goal, external obstacles, or internal issues.Edit Note | Go to the Worksheet
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Focused Life – Worksheet Notes
PART ONE: DIGITAL DECLUTTER
List the technologies you use in your personal life and label each as optional, mandatory, or mixed:Edit Note | Go to the Worksheet
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For each of your mixed technologies specify rules that enable you to maintain the high-value activities with that technology while minimizing the low-value distractions:Edit Note | Go to the Worksheet
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List your plan to lowdown the technologies you labelled “optional”:Edit Note | Go to the Worksheet
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PART TWO: REPLACING DISTRACTION
What needs did your previous digital habits serve that might get unfulfilled without them? Write these down below and come up with at least constructive high quality alternatives for each.Edit Note | Go to the Worksheet
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What are some alternatives you can use with your new time? (Hint: Don’t just pick effortful mental activities. Include a variety of social, physical, mental and entertaining options.)Edit Note | Go to the Worksheet
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PART THREE: REINTEGRATING DIGITAL DEVICES
Which activities show overwhelming benefit, so that you intend to resume them after the month finishes? For each, explain how you’ll create constraints so that you won’t fall back into a pattern of mindless consumption.Edit Note | Go to the Worksheet
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Focused Mind – Worksheet Notes
PART ONE: PICKING YOUR PROJECT
What have you always wanted to MAKE or BUILD but haven’t been able to focus on before?Edit Note | Go to the Worksheet
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Which pursuit from above are you most excited about. Pick one to work on.Edit Note | Go to the Worksheet
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Limit the scope of your project to something you can definitely accomplish in the next month. You can do this by hours (4 hours per week), by output (one painting, every Sunday) or by topic (master the basic travel vocabulary in Spanish).Edit Note | Go to the Worksheet
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PART TWO: CHOOSE YOUR APPROACH
What materials, resources, locations or instruction do you need to do your project? List it out and organize it all in advance.Edit Note | Go to the Worksheet
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When will you work on your project? Try to plan a consistent time that’s unlikely to get bumped by other, higher-priority items.Edit Note | Go to the Worksheet
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What is the concrete manifestation of your newly acquired skill? Your learning project should involve producing or performing something at the end, not just passive consumption.Edit Note | Go to the Worksheet
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PART THREE: OPTIMIZING YOUR APPROACH
How well have you stuck to your initial timetable? If you haven’t, how can you modify it to make it more likely to succeed? You may want to change when you do your project, or change the amount of hours you expect to put in.Edit Note | Go to the Worksheet
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How could you reorganize the project so you’re spending more time DOING the thing you want to make or get good at, and less time on purely preparatory activities?Edit Note | Go to the Worksheet
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What’s something you can use the skill you’re learning towards? Is there a competition, upcoming event or activity where it can be applied? How can you make finishing your project more rewarding?Edit Note | Go to the Worksheet
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