Getting a lot done

I’ve been thinking a lot about Cal Newport’s idea of deep focus.

Not in an abstract, productivity-hacker way. More in the very practical sense of: how do I actually protect my attention while running multiple projects and staying responsive to the people I work with?

Newport’s core argument in Deep Work is simple and uncomfortable. The ability to do focused, cognitively demanding work is becoming rare. And because it’s rare, it’s becoming incredibly valuable.

I buy that. Completely. The harder part has been turning it into something livable, not monastic.

Batch Processing

Email and Slack used to leak into everything. I’d check them constantly, half-reading messages while context switching between real work. It felt responsive, but it wasn’t effective.

So I started batching.

Most weeks now, my communication windows look roughly like this:

• Morning check-in

• Midday sweep

• End-of-day closeout

That’s it.

Some weeks I’m better than others. When I look back week by week, the pattern is clear. The weeks where I stick to this are the weeks where real progress happens. The weeks where I don’t feel busy, just effective.

Setting the Expectation Explicitly

This part felt awkward at first, but it’s been surprisingly freeing.

I tell everyone I work with the same thing:

I batch email and Slack. Text me if it’s urgent.

Doing this creates a clear escalation path. It also forces a moment of judgment. Is this actually urgent, or just top of mind?

Everything else lives in email or Slack, and the expectation is simple. You’ll hear back by end of day.

No anxiety. No ambiguity. No performative responsiveness.

Inbox Zero, Without the Trap

I still aim for Inbox Zero every day.

But here’s the important distinction I had to learn the hard way. Inbox Zero does not mean solving everything.

It means moving things to where they belong.

I process an email or Slack message with this simple flowchart:

1. Can I solve it in less than 30 seconds? Do it.

2. Otherwise, move it to my task list.

The inbox is not where thinking happens. It’s just an intake valve. Once I stopped trying to solve problems while clearing the inbox, Inbox Zero stopped being exhausting.

One P1 Per Day

This has been the biggest unlock. Every day gets one P1 task. One thing that, if it moves forward, makes the day a win.

Not five. Not a ranked list of ten. One.

Everything else is secondary. Nice to have. Opportunistic. Fill-in work. This has forced a level of honesty I didn’t expect. You can’t hide behind busyness when you only get one top priority. You either do the real work, or you don’t.

What I’m Learning

Deep focus isn’t about disappearing. It’s about being deliberate.

Deliberate about when you’re available. Deliberate about what deserves immediate attention. Deliberate about protecting the few hours a day where real thinking can happen.

I’m still getting better at this. Some weeks I slip. Some days the batching falls apart. But the direction is right.

And increasingly, I can feel the difference between a day spent reacting and a day spent actually building.

That difference compounds.

#HappyLearning