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[ A Concise Guide
by Memory
]
 D E WO B Y M E M O R Y

“
You are not paid to be on top
of things; you are paid to get
to the bottom of them.

Donald Knuth
 D E WO B Y M E M O R Y

Modern work is built on the premise of increased

efficiency, simplicity and happiness.
And yet, we have never felt busier.

Our days are lived in a digital blur — jumping from

task to task, responding to messages as they land,
reacting to new notifications. We spend about 23% of
our day on email, and 15.5 hours of each week in
meetings. We touch and tap our phones 2,617 times
per day. And we spend half of our day simply
receiving information.

It’s passive, it’s reactive, it’s unconscious, it’s

exhausting — and it’s not what we were actually
hired to do.

3
 D E WO B Y M E M O R Y

Deep work is an
antidote to our
digitally distracted
world.

It’s a mechanism for achieving intense, productive focus.

It’s a philosophy for creating a more intentional and
meaningful everyday.
It’s arguably society’s most valuable and coveted job skill.

This guide lays out exactly how to practice deep work

and thrive by it.

4
 D E WO B Y M E M O R Y

Contents
6 What is deep work?

8 Where has it come from?

11 Why does it matter?

15 Deep work rules

18 How to do deep work

Choose a philosophy

Set a structure

Create routines

Become unavailable

Measure it

Know when to stop

37 Deep work aids

41 Tips for getting started

5
 D E WO B Y M E M O R Y

What is
deep work? 1
“
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.

— Cal Newport

Deep work is the ability to concentrate deeply on a difficult task

for prolonged periods of time without getting distracted. It
creates that intense, out-of-body kind of focus that makes you
completely oblivious to what’s going on around you — the kind
that produces your best work.

Deep work stands in direct opposition to shallow work: the non-

cognitively demanding, highly replicable tasks that don’t create
any real value and are often performed in a state of distraction —
like managing email, responding to Slack and logging time sheets.

6
W H AT I S D E E P WO R K? D E WO B Y M E M O R Y

any real value and are often performed in a state of distraction —

like managing email, responding to Slack and logging time sheets.

The concept was first popularized by Georgetown professor and

author Cal Newport, in his 2016 work Deep Work: Rules for
Focused Success in a Distracted World. It draws on Mihaly
Csikszentmihalyi’s idea of flow and ancient practices of presence,
to amplify the value of focus in a digitally distracted zeitgeist.

7
 D E WO B Y M E M O R Y

Where has
it come
from?
2
Deep work is a response to the dizzying state of modern
knowledge work. Our virtually-connected workplace contains a
never ending supply of distractions in the form of notifications,
emails and social media. They make it impossible to focus fully on
any single task or prioritize work that actually drives us forward.

A proliferation of apps and devices has only fed this problem.

Many of us suffer from “inbox anxiety”, and can’t go 30 minutes
without checking our email. We are immediately available to new
requests, using asynchronous tools synchronously and dropping
whatever we’re doing to check a Slack notification or answer an
unimportant email. As a result, our digital interactions have
become increasingly passive — built around receiving and
consuming information, instead of acting with intention.

Our perpetual busyness is unrewarding and stressful, and dilutes

the attention we have available for our work. It makes it
impossible to reflect on what truly matters and whether our
efforts are actually useful.

8
W H E R E I T CA M E F R O M ? D E WO B Y M E M O R Y

This is precisely what deep work tries to solve. It is a method for

reclaiming productive focus, for being present on the work that
matters, and for working with impact.

9
 D E WO B Y M E M O R Y

!
[ It takes about 23 minutes to
refocus after a distraction.
]

10
 D E WO B Y M E M O R Y

Why does
it matter? 3
On the surface, deep work is about economic gain; increasing
productivity, mastering difficult concepts and improving quality in
the face of an automated future. But it’s also about reconnecting
with our self and considering the true value of our time. For
Newport, deep work is ultimately about reaching a state of
eudaimonia — where we feel we are achieving our full human
potential.

"If you don't produce, you won't thrive"

Spending our days in a state of distraction and working on low-

value shallow tasks limits our ability to perform at our cognitive
peak. But to thrive in our present economy, we need to be able to
quickly learn complicated things and produce at an elite level.
Both of these abilities depend on the ability to perform cognitively
demanding deep work. We can’t solve difficult problems or create
new value without space for undisturbed deep thinking.

11
W H E R E I T CA M E F R O M ? D E WO B Y M E M O R Y

The ultimate job skill

By helping people produce high-quality work at a superior rate,

deep work is key to securing competitive advantage in the
workplace. Newport argues that those who practice it will quickly
outstrip their colleagues and land the best jobs, since deep work
is becoming increasingly rare. In a business landscape of rapid
adoption and reinvention, quickly mastering new skills and
producing creative breakthroughs counts for a lot. It also offers
protection against automation, since deep workers will be able to
take on more complex work.

The best life there is

Deep work challenges people to regularly accomplish difficult and

meaningful tasks. It produces their most fulfilling and self-
enriching work, and a profound satisfaction which can benefit
their life more widely. As Csikszentmihalyi explains, people who
are able to regularly access flow states “lead vigorous lives, are
open to a variety of experiences, keep on learning until the day
they die, and have strong ties and commitments to other people
and to the environment in which they live. They enjoy whatever
they do, even if tedious or difficult; they are hardly ever bored,
and they can take in stride anything that comes their way. Perhaps
their greatest strength is that they are in control of their lives.”

12
 D E WO B Y M E M O R Y

Human beings…are at their

best when immersed deeply in
“
something challenging.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
 D E WO B Y M E M O R Y

“ Deep work is becoming increasingly

rare at exactly the same time it is
becoming increasingly valuable in our
economy. As a consequence, the few
who cultivate this skill, and then make it
the core of their working life, will thrive.

Cal Newport
 D E WO B Y M E M O R Y

Deep work
rules 4
Deep work sees attention as the key to our productive potential.
Whereas multitasking creates an environment of continuous
partial attention — where we manage several tasks without being
fully engaged in any of them — deep work produces a singular,
undivided attention. Under these conditions, we can push our
cognitive capabilities to their limit.

Deep work tells us to focus on two main areas:

Improving cognitive fitness — our ability to focus without

distraction and get good performance from our brain.

Eliminating task residue — our tendency to continue attending to

a past task once we’ve moved on to another.

Effectively, we just need to create the space and environment for

prolonged, uninterrupted focus. While there are many routes to
achieving this, the main rules of deep work include:

15
D E E P WO R K R U L E S D E WO B Y M E M O R Y

{
Removing distraction
Cutting out shallow work
Planning and protecting deep work time
Balancing deep work with quality rest }
Can everyone do it?

While deep work is primarily aimed at knowledge workers, the

framework is accessible to anyone. The principle of setting a goal,
creating space to achieve it and controlling your environment to
maximize your attention can be applied to any small task you want
to achieve. While CEOs managing several responsibilities
simultaneously may find it challenging, it hasn’t stopped our
founder Mathias from carving out three days a week for
uninterrupted deep work.

16
 D E WO B Y M E M O R Y

“ I schedule meetings for

mornings only, and I always do
them back-to-back — never
spread out.
Mathias Mikkelsen
 D E WO B Y M E M O R Y

How to do
deep work 5
On to the practical part — actually doing deep work. In the next
few pages, we’ll walk through the entire deep work process, from
choosing the right depth philosophy for your working style, to
knowing when to come up for air. But essentially, the basic steps
for performing deep work are pretty straightforward:

[ ]
1 Clearly define what you want to achieve
2 Plan your deep work into long, uninterrupted stretches
3 Review your progress to refine your approach
4 Repeat all over again

The repetition is crucial here. Newport stresses that deep work is

a skill that needs to be trained; you need to keep repeating it to
strengthen it, as you would a muscle.

18
 D E WO B Y M E M O R Y

Deep work is a skill, like playing

the guitar—something that you
“
shouldn’t expect to be good at if
you haven’t been practicing.
Cal Newport
 H OW TO D O D E E P WO R K D E WO B Y M E M O R Y

1 Choose a depth philosophy

In order to work long-term, deep work has to match your lifestyle

and the nature of your work. Luckily, there are a lot of different
approaches — or “depth philosophies” — to make it fit your
circumstances. These are effectively long-term strategies for
doing deep work, and Newport has identified four of them to
choose from.

Monastic

The hardcore approach — permanently removing or radically

minimizing all distractions from your work. That means no social
media, meetings, phone time, internet browsing or email. While
there’s no set timeframe for this approach, the minimum unit for
doing it tends to be at least one full day. It works best for
professors and independent researchers who can immerse
themselves in their work without negative consequences. Think
cabin in the woods for days on end.

Bimodal

This is perhaps “realistic hardcore” — dividing your time between

deep and shallow stretches, whether across days and weeks, or
whole months at a time. Again, the minimum tends to be at least
one full day of deep work. It’s useful for people who can’t
completely remove or ignore their shallow work obligations.

20
H OW TO D O D E E P WO R K D E WO B Y M E M O R Y

Rhythmic

This approach is more achievable for your regular office worker —

and the easiest option for getting started with deep work. You
schedule deep work into every day, creating a routine. While deep
work won’t necessarily take up your entire day, you will protect
space for it every day. It’s particularly handy for work that lacks
pressure, like writing a book. Creating a rhythmic habit, where
you do a bit of work every evening, can help you maintain
progress.

Journalistic

Newport finds this method the most advanced, since it lacks the
structured certainty of the preceding three. It means switching to
deep work mode whenever free time presents itself — mimicking
the way journalists often work. If your work or lifestyle make it
impossible to create a regular, structured routine for deep work,
this is the best approach for you. But you need discipline — to
seize the opportunity and quickly lock focus whenever
opportunity strikes.

21
 D E WO B Y M E M O R Y

!
[ ]
Unless you’re an academic, the
rhythmic approach is probably
your best option — especially for
getting started.

22
 H OW TO D O D E E P WO R K D E WO B Y M E M O R Y

2 Set a structure

Planning and structuring is the backbone of deep work. A solid

plan doesn’t just ensure you protect space for deep focus and set
a healthy pace for your work; it encourages you to be intentional
about what you want to get from that time.

Schedule your flows

Newport himself plans his deep work four weeks in advance, but
at the beginning you’ll probably just want to plan out your
sessions one week ahead. Look through your calendar and
identify periods or days for deep work, remembering to factor in
the times of day you are most productive and focused (intelligent
tech can help identify this). Then publicly schedule your deep
work, so no one can book you for anything during those periods.

State what you will work on

Deep work sessions should have a clear purpose and goal. Your
brain is more engaged when it has a specific objective, and your
deep work session will yield more tangible results if you do. Think
about what important work you want to prioritize and what you
want to achieve by the end of your session.

23
H OW TO D O D E E P WO R K D E WO B Y M E M O R Y

Add time limits

Imposing time limits can intensify your deep work, shifting you
into a “scarcity mindset” that helps focus your attention. Time
blocking is a great method for this. While Newport claims you
should schedule every minute of your day, time blocking doesn’t
have to be overwhelming. It simply means dividing your activities
into finite portions of time, so you allot the right amount of effort
to each task. Time blocking shallow tasks like Slack and email is a
great way to limit their destructive potential.

Start small and scale

As a skill that needs to be developed, you can’t hope to just jump

straight into four solid hours of deep work. Newport suggests
starting with 60- to 90-minute sessions and gradually scaling
them up if you experience consistent success. You can then batch
relevant tasks together for meatier blocks of deep work. (This will
require good knowledge of how long different tasks take you to
stay achievable).

24
 D E WO B Y M E M O R Y

!
[ Start with 60- to 90-minute deep
work sessions and gradually
scale them up. ]

25
 H OW TO D O D E E P WO R K D E WO B Y M E M O R Y

3 Create routines
One thing Newport stresses again and again, is that deep work
isn’t easy. It requires effort — you need willpower to focus and
incrementally push yourself to do longer sessions. But willpower is
notoriously unreliable, being largely mood-driven. It’s also finite,
and each time we break our focus or ask our brain to make a
decision, we take from its limited store.

As such, we need to establish structured habits to reinforce our

willpower. These routines should effectively reduce decision
making and multitasking, to help us maximize the amount of deep
work we can do in any given session. They are failsafe
mechanisms for deep concentration — going beyond good
intentions to help you lock your focus when it matters.

Routines which help sustain your deep thinking include:

Establishing where you will do deep work and for how long

Scheduling deep work consistently for a specific time of day on

set days

Gathering everything you need for your work ahead of a session

Distraction-proofing your space (e.g. enabling anti-distraction

tools, turning off devices)

Creating a process for ending deep work — including structuring

the next session

26
H OW TO D O D E E P WO R K D E WO B Y M E M O R Y

Grand gesture can help here. Whether renting a coworking space

or moving to a dedicated room in your office, introducing a radical
change into your environment for deep work can help increase its
perceived importance and help you commit to it.

27
 D E WO B Y M E M O R Y

!
[ ]
Routines and rituals minimize the
amount willpower that’s needed
to transition into a state of
unbroken concentration.

28
 H OW TO D O D E E P WO R K D E WO B Y M E M O R Y

4 Become unavailable
Since the whole premise of deep work is maintaining
uninterrupted focus, you need to create a distraction-free
environment. That means blocking out irrelevant and destructive
stimuli — the sum clatter of chat notifications, colleagues, email,
meetings, phone calls, social media and open offices. It also
means accepting that all questions and requests can wait until
you’re done. For this reason, many people enforce strict isolation
and become completely digitally unavailable during deep work.

You can protect your focus from distraction by:

Booking an office meeting room for your deep work

Blocking out deep work time on your public calendar

Muting notifications across your apps and devices

Updating your Slack status to “deep working”

Setting availability hours for answering email and Slack queries

Turning your phone off or leaving it outside your deep work space

Triggering a deep work auto-responder message for new emails

Deleting low-value apps and disruptive tools

Blocking specific internet sites so you can’t access them

Adopting an opt-in policy to meetings

29
H OW TO D O D E E P WO R K D E WO B Y M E M O R Y

It’s both about stopping people from interrupting you, and

stopping you from distracting yourself. A huge part of that is
about setting expectations around your availability. Too often, we
use asynchronous communication tools synchronously — but
doing deep work well means accepting that you shouldn’t be
immediately available. You should decide when you want to allow
shallow tasks and distractions in.

30
 H OW TO D O D E E P WO R K D E WO B Y M E M O R Y

5 Measure it

As the saying goes: you can’t improve it, if you can’t measure it.
Measuring deep work helps you gauge its effectiveness, check
you’re doing enough of it and identify what’s holding you back.
You can use deep work data to make the case to work from home
or outsource your shallow tasks. Measuring deep work also helps
you set motivational milestones, which can be especially helpful
when you’re trying to increase the length of your sessions.

How do you measure deep work?

There are several different approaches — like keeping a deep-to-

shallow work ratio, or just tracking your daily percentage of deep
work hours and trying to raise it over time. But ultimately, they
depend on you keeping an accurate account of all your time.

Automatic time tracking is your best friend here — it captures

everything you work on across web and desktop apps, essentially
holding up a mirror to your working day. You can see how long you
spend in deep work, and identify the apps that demand most of
your time.

Artificial intelligence can then take this to the next level —

working out patterns in your productive behavior to understand
how you reach a state of deep work.

31
H OW TO D O D E E P WO R K D E WO B Y M E M O R Y

Smart new tools can now measure your daily deep work for you,
comparing it against your past behavior to help you score and
trace your progress. By analyzing your deep work, they can even
show you the days, times of day and locations where you are most
focused.

32
 D E WO B Y M E M O R Y

!
[ ]
Always set goals for your deep
work session, so you can
recalibrate your efforts based on
what you end up achieving.

33
 H OW TO D O D E E P WO R K D E WO B Y M E M O R Y

6 Know when to stop

According to attention restoration theory, our attention is a

limited capacity resource; we can only concentrate on a task for a
finite amount of time before it becomes cognitively exhausting
(usually an hour or two at most). So we need to take cognitive
breathers — knowing when to stop and how to recharge ready for
another session.

Newport has a few useful approaches for doing this:

Deep breaks

These allow you to regroup from a deep work session without

impeding your ability to quickly dive back into deep focus.
According to Newport, they should take roughly 10 to 15 minutes.
They shouldn’t be spent working on stressful, task-related or
personal work which can’t be completed in that time, since this
can introduce attention residue into your day. Instead, deep
breaks should focus on simple things unconnected to your deep
work task — like reading a book or completing a small errand.

Shutdown rituals

Rituals help your brain fully disengage from work, so you can be
present in your downtime. They are essentially a performative
boundary for your brain which set an official end to your workday.
Your ritual should be long enough to let you prioritize tasks for the
following day, without actually starting on them.

34
H OW TO D O D E E P WO R K D E WO B Y M E M O R Y

Newport likes to actually verbally chant a “closure phrase” to self-

signal that he is stepping away from his desk and stopping for the
day.

Productive meditations

These are essentially a mindful practice for deep thinking. They

involve using periods of non-cognitive physical work to focus on a
single well-defined problem. Jogging, walking, driving, cleaning,
showering — these are all prime territory for productive
meditation. Newport recommends doing this two or three times a
week to help improve your ability to focus your attention and
ignore distraction.

35
 D E WO B Y M E M O R Y

!
[ ]
Be more intentional with your
downtime — cutting out passive
digital interaction helps to
establish it as a distraction,
instead of a reward.

36
 D E WO B Y M E M O R Y

Deep work
aids 6 6

Digital tools are often cited as the mortal enemies of deep work,
since they have huge potential to distract and derail our attention.
But a select few can help set you up for success. Try using these
smart tools to facilitate your deep work practice.

Dewo
2
As your “personal assistant for doing
deep work”, Dewo offers distraction
1 6
management, schedule optimization
and deep work scoring all in one. 5

Using AI, it can automatically toggle

“Do Not Disturb” mode across your
devices once you enter a flow state,
and move your meetings to create
space for deep work. Daily insights
help you quantify your deep work,
and reveal the days, times of day
3
and locations where you do your
most focused work.

37
D E E P WO R K A I D S D E WO B Y M E M O R Y

Weekplan

Weekplan is a calendar and task organiser rolled into one. Use it

to schedule deep work, set specific goals and rank your priorities.
The “Parking Lot” section is great for noting down and containing
undeveloped tasks — like those you receive from Slack and email
— so they don’t work their way into your schedule.

Timely
13:18
Github

Aside from offering a simple

way to time block your deep 13:30
work, Timely helps you Asana
13:48
estimate the time you’ll need Calendar

for each task. It

automatically tracks
everything you work on
across web and desktop, and
visualizes the time you spend 14:30
Trello
on every activity in a clean
timeline view. Since every
minute of the day is 15:12
Wunderlist
accounted for, you can also
see where you get distracted
and what apps you use the
most.

38
D E E P WO R K A I D S D E WO B Y M E M O R Y

Brain FM

Noisy work environments can impede deep work, but that doesn’t
make sound itself disruptive. Studies show that listening to the
right kind of music can increase your productivity, spark creativity
and support presence. Tools like Brain FM outsource the problem
of finding the right concentration-compatible sounds.

Freedom

Freedom helps you stay focused by blocking distracting websites

and apps across your web, desktop and mobile devices. You can
customize what sites you want to block (choosing to block the
entire internet if you like). “Locked Mode” is particularly useful
when you want to knuckle down — stopping you from ending a
blocked session, no matter how hard you try.

39
 D E WO B Y M E M O R Y

“
Before Dewo, I didn’t even reflect on
when I created the most value. I now
plan my week more intelligently and
feel motivated to achieve more deep
work.

Layal H
 D E WO B Y M E M O R Y

Tips for getting

started
PRINT AND CUT
✁

Have a dedicated space for deep work.

By making “entering” and “leaving” deep work mode
symbolic commitments, you boost your motivation and
will to focus.

41
 D E WO B Y M E M O R Y

Keep a clear workspace — digitally, physically

and mentally. Only have the tools and tabs open that
you need for deep work. Don’t allow yourself to get
distracted on the way by an irrelevant note on your
desk or a WhatsApp message.

Always set a time limit for each session.

Open sessions are hard to measure, lack the pressure
to focus, quickly become mentally exhausting and
completely kill your motivation.
 D E WO B Y M E M O R Y

Leave your phone in another room. Research shows

that just having your phone nearby can inhibit your
ability to concentrate (even if it’s turned off). Label
anything that distracts you, like devices and websites, to
help change how you feel when you use them.

Don’t be discouraged by an early bad experience.

Remember that deep work requires serious effort. It’s
a skill you need to train. Learn from early
shortcomings, tweak your approach and remember
that focus takes practice.
 D E WO B Y M E M O R Y

Allow yourself to be bored. Instead of plugging

gaps with empty digital stimulation, let you mind
wander about your present. Studies show that
boredom can help us focus more powerfully when
we return to a task.

Reverse focus and distraction planning. Contain and

restrict distractions by scheduling time for them in
advance. Mark out breaks from your focused time to
manage shallow tasks and notifications.
 D E WO B Y M E M O R Y

Put more thought into your downtime. Build more

quality, engaging experiences over mindless,
automatic ones. Be fully present in your rest, so
you return to work refreshed.

Remember how awesome it feels to be in your flow

— that intense, full-body kind of concentration to
which nothing else quite compares. Savor the deep
satisfaction you feel at the close of a session.
 D E WO B Y M E M O R Y

“
If you think deep work is a habit, and
then you try it and it goes poorly…
you might incorrectly conclude that
you’re not a ‘deep work person’, and
give up on it.

Cal Newport
 D E WO B Y M E M O R Y

Dewo is your personal assistant for deep

work — helping you access, maximize
and stay in your flow.

Using machine learning, Dewo can dissect your productive patterns

and actively help you work smarter. Aside from measuring your deep
work, it reschedules meetings to create more space for deep
concentration, and automatically mutes notifications across your
devices once you reach your flow.

It’s also completely free!

Start doing deep work today

 D E WO B Y M E M O R Y

Ready to work
smarter?