Solve LabsGuide · 5-minute read
The Deep Work Protocol

Deep work is a skill. Here is the training plan.

Six weeks, from 2 blocks of 25 minutes towards 5 blocks of 55, at the pace your own results set.

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By Solve Labs · October 2026

An hourglass, a phone face down, headphones and a notepad with a pen laid out in a row, in black and white
FIG. 0The kit: a timer, a sound, paper and a pen. The phone goes in another room.

You sit down to work. A message comes in, then another. Forty minutes later the real task has not started.

Deep work is the other kind of hour: one demanding task, your full attention, nothing else open. The term is Cal Newport’s. [1]

You train it the way you train for a run: start with a load you can finish, then raise it.

10×
“In deep work I’m ten times more productive than in shallow work.”Przemyslaw Siwek, Solve Labs · one person’s experience

The plan has you count your own multiple. Here is what the research has measured.

What the research measured
25min 26s

On average before interrupted work was picked up again.

One field study of 24 office workers, with a wide spread: read it as an order of size. Mark, González & Harris, 2005 [2]

d =.65

The effect of an if-then plan on reaching a goal, between medium and large.

Pooled from 94 independent tests. Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006 [3]

4h

About four hours a day is where the people who do the most deep work stop.

Violin students in Berlin and a review of other fields. A pattern in what experts report, not a measured limit. Ericsson, Krampe & Tesch-Römer, 1993 [4]

Free · the six-week workbook

Get the training plan.

  • A 42-page workbook to print and fill in
  • A six-week ladder from 2 × 25 to 5 × 55
  • A one-page tracker for the wall
  • A log for every block
  • 24 sources, each graded

We email the workbook and a few short lessons on the protocol. Unsubscribe in one click.

Three sheets of the Deep Work Protocol workbook: the cover, the six-week ladder and the one-page tracker

The plan has two parts. The method is the set-up that makes a block easy to start. The ladder is how the load rises.

The methodSet up once

A block is a decision made in advance

A hand setting down a sand hourglass, the sand starting to run, in black and white
FIG. 1One task. One timer. A finish line.

The hard part of deep work is the start, because it is three decisions at once: what, when, and for how long. The method takes all three the day before.

01The evening before

Write tomorrow’s task tonight

A fingertip pressing a single blank sticky note onto a desk, a pen beside it, in black and white
FIG. 2One task for each block, sized to end with the timer.

“Work on the report” has no end, so it is easy to put off. “Draft the findings section until the timer rings” can start at 9:00.

FormA verb and an object
Finish lineA number or a thing
SizeOne block long
02The front of the day

Deep work first, shallow work on a schedule

Your blocks go first, stacked, and all done before dinner. Mail, messages and admin get two or three fixed windows.

An early week · three blocks of 25 · mail first opened at 10:00
07:0009:0011:0013:0015:0017:0019:00
Deep blockBreakShallow windowLunchShutdownDinner
FIG. 3Times are examples. Yours start in your first good hours.

124 adults checked email three times a day for one week and freely for another. Daily stress was lower in the three-times week. [5]

Block 1Before email, chat and news
Last blockEnds before dinner
First windowAfter block 1
03Before block 1

Give the phone another room

Two hands lowering a phone, face down, into a plain cardboard box, in black and white
FIG. 4Checking it becomes a walk you have to choose.

The research, in order:

2017 · the claimPeople scored lower on tests of mental capacity with their phone on the desk than with it in another room. [6]
2022 · the retestThe same tasks, registered in advance. Where the phone was made no difference. [7]
2024 · the total27 studies, 7,093 people. A small effect on working memory remained. [8]

Our reading: a silent phone costs you when you pick it up. Distance makes the pick-up impossible, and that is reason enough.

WhereAnother room
TakesTen seconds
CostsNothing
04Every block

Choose one sound and keep it

Two hands holding a pair of over-ear headphones, in black and white
FIG. 5No words in it.

Keep the same choice every block, so the sound itself comes to mean that work has started.

Across 65 studies of reading with background sound, music with lyrics lowered comprehension (d = −0.35). Instrumental music: about zero. [9]

Binaural beats are an option to try: possible, and unproven.

22 studies · the benefitA moderate effect when pooled (g = 0.45). [10]
14 studies · the mechanism5 found it, 8 did not, 1 was mixed. [11]
First choiceSilence
SecondMusic without words
To tryBinaural beats
05Between blocks

Take fixed breaks, away from the screen

Every break has its length before the block begins. A break you take when you feel like it tends to come late and run long.

01234 123
  • 1 · Minute 0 to 1: close the blockStand up. Fill in the log row. Start the break timer.
  • 2 · Minute 1 to 4: leaveWalk to another room. Look at something more than six metres away. Drink water.
  • 3 · Minute 4 to 5: come backSit down and read the next task line.
FIG. 6The five-minute break of weeks 1 and 2.

In 22 samples (n = 2,335), breaks of up to 10 minutes raised vigour (d = .36) and cut fatigue (d = .35). The gain in output is small and not statistically secure. [12]

Weeks 1–25 min
Week 310 min
Week 4+ one long break, 20–30 min
Weeks 5–610–15 min + a meal break
06The end of the day

Shut down at a fixed time

A fixed ending lets you leave work at work, and it is where tomorrow’s blocks get their tasks.

The ten-minute shutdown
  1. Close the log and mark the tracker on the wall.
  2. Empty the capture pad, the notepad for thoughts that arrive mid-block.
  3. Write tomorrow’s tasks, one for each block. Hardest first.
  4. Park what is open: one line with the next action.
  5. Close everything and say a fixed phrase: “Done for today.”
FIG. 7Five moves, in this order.

A review of the research on recovery from work found that people who mentally leave work in the evening report less strain and better well-being. [13]

WhenAfter the last block
How long10 minutes
ThenWork stays closed
The ladderSix weeks

Six weeks, one step at a time

Each week raises one thing: the number of blocks or their length. Week 1 asks for 50 minutes, under the hour Newport puts as a beginner’s limit. [1]

Deep time a day, by week
Ceiling, about 4 h
50 min
1 h 15
2 h
2 h 40
3 h 40
4 h 35
W12 × 25W23 × 25W33 × 40W44 × 40W54 × 55W65 × 55
FIG. 8Blocks a day × minutes each. Optional after week 6: 5 × 60.

At the end of each week, count the days on which every planned block was finished

5–7Move up
3–4Repeat the week
0–2Step back one week
  • A bad day’s minimum is one 25-minute block. It still counts as a day trained.

Week 6 asks for 4 h 35, which is at or above the roughly four hours found in elite performers. [4]

So the top of the ladder is a level to test. Many people will settle at 4 × 55, and that is a full result.

Where this ladder comes from. No study has tested this exact sequence. It is Solve Labs’ method, built from the evidence on this page.

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When you are ready

The training costs nothing.

If you want the three products that go with it, the Deep Work System starts from £5 plus £4.95 UK delivery.

See the Deep Work System →

60 days to decide on your first order, even opened. Food supplement. Not a substitute for a varied diet and a healthy lifestyle.

First coffee
Lion’s Mane
After breakfast
Brain Tech
After the shutdown
Reishi

Sources