Deep work
Deep work refers to focused, uninterrupted effort on tasks that require sustained attention, such as writing, analysis, design or problem-solving. It is distinguished from shallow work, which covers routine, low-concentration tasks like clearing email or attending short status meetings.
The amount of deep work available to someone in a given week is a strong indicator of whether they will be able to make progress on demanding, high-value tasks, separate from how many hours they technically worked. A week with plenty of hours but no protected blocks can leave important work permanently postponed.
Calendar structure is the clearest proxy available for deep work availability. Long unbroken gaps, particularly ones a person has deliberately protected, are a reasonable signal that focused work is possible; a calendar chopped into short segments throughout the day is a signal that it is not.
Sloane can flag when a person's available deep work time has fallen well below their own recent normal, particularly when this coincides with demanding or complex work on their plate, and can suggest specific, small adjustments, such as protecting a block or moving a meeting, rather than a general call to work differently.
Related terms
- Context switching, The mental cost of moving between unrelated tasks or topics, which accumulates over a day and reduces the depth and quality of thinking available for any one of them.
- Calendar load, A measure of how demanding a person's schedule is, based on meeting density, back-to-back bookings and time actually left free, rather than headcount of meetings alone.
- Meeting fragmentation, The extent to which a day's meetings are scattered in short, disconnected blocks rather than grouped together, leaving little usable time in between.