Your lists and inbox are under control, but the one task that needs real thinking still isn’t done.
Let’s settle the deep work vs Getting Things Done question. You’ll see what each is for, what the best-known GTD criticism says, and how blocks fit your lists.
What is the difference between deep work and Getting Things Done?
GTD manages your tasks, while deep work is how you do a demanding one. GTD, David Allen’s system, keeps tasks in lists and breaks projects into steps called next actions. Deep work, as Cal Newport defines it, is distraction-free focus on mentally demanding work.
| GTD | Deep work | |
|---|---|---|
| Described in | David Allen, Getting Things Done | Cal Newport, Deep Work |
| What it is | A system for managing tasks and next actions | Distraction-free focus on demanding work |
| Answers the question | What should I do next? | How do I do it with full focus? |
In my view, GTD and deep work don’t compete for the same job. Knowing what comes next doesn’t mean working on it with full focus. The two meet at one moment: when you sit down to work on one item from your list.
During a block, you work from one sheet, not from your list
First, identify deep work tasks on your list and take one. During the block, you write your goal and work steps on a blank sheet, your protocol sheet. Your brain alone loses focus, but the sheet pulls you back.
To avoid distractions during deep work, close email, Slack and social media, then every app the task doesn’t need. While the block runs, your task app is one of the apps you close. Every open app is an open thought, and your brain wastes energy trying to ignore it.
What is Cal Newport’s criticism of GTD?
In a 2012 blog post, Newport wrote that Allen reduces all work to next actions. He called this task universalism, the idea that every kind of work fits into next actions. This view explains why he, too, kept the list and the hard work apart.
Newport’s reason was that remarkable results, the ones that stand out, come from deep work. In his view, deep work resists being broken down into a list of next actions. That was his position in 2012.
His compromise was to keep using GTD for shallow work and to treat deep work as a separate practice. Shallow work, as he describes it, means simple, logistical tasks that don’t demand hard thinking. People often do them while distracted.
When I organized my own work with GTD, my task lists kept getting longer and longer. Looking at those lists discouraged me more than it helped me.
Write the block goal as a result, not an activity
To start a deep work session, you don’t need the whole project as next actions. You only need the result this block is for. Start the timer, then take the protocol sheet and write down your goal in three to five steps.
- Write down the end goal: the final result of your project, as a state already reached.
- Write down an intermediate goal (optional): the next milestone on the way.
- Write down the block goal: the result you want from this block, like “First draft of the outline is done”.
- Write down the next action (optional): the smallest concrete step, if it isn’t clear yet.
- Start.
Phrase every goal as a completed state, or as I put it: “Is done,” not “do.” That gives your brain a clear picture of the result. The next action is usually clear once the block goal is written, so note it only when it isn’t.
Make the block goal ambitious but doable, because a goal that’s too big overwhelms you until you can’t start. A goal that’s too small gives you no drive. If you miss it, that’s no disaster: each time you do this, you get better at judging what’s realistic.
What happens to new tasks that come up during a block?
While you work toward your block goal, new tasks go on the thought sheet, and you return to the work. This second blank sheet lies next to your protocol sheet and collects other tasks, ideas and errands. Your brain is afraid of forgetting them, but once they’re on paper, it calms down.
The hard part is metacognition, which means that you notice when your own mind wanders. Even an interesting link that feels like work is a distraction, so note it on the sheet as one keyword. After your last block of the day, you do one of three things with each item.
- Move it into your task system.
- Handle it right away.
- Cross it out if it no longer matters.
Then throw the thought sheet away, and finish the day with the other steps of your deep work shutdown ritual. This is where GTD and the block meet. Your task system gets the new items, while the block itself stays free of them.
When you combine deep work with GTD, your task system holds and sorts everything you have to do. Before each block, you take one task from it, and you do that task in the block. The thought sheet then brings the new items back into your task system.
Your task list decides what your next block is for. How you prepare that one block, start it, work through it and end it decides whether the task gets done. See how it works →
FAQ
Did Cal Newport use GTD?
Yes, Deep Work author Cal Newport says he adopted GTD in 2003, as a third-year student at Dartmouth College. In graduate school at MIT, GTD kept him organized. But it did not make him better at the hard, focused work of his field.
Should you clear your GTD inbox during a deep work block?
No. Your GTD inbox, where your new items collect, gets its own block. Each block works toward one result, so the inbox needs a separate block.
Match that block to your energy. Demanding tasks need energy, and easier tasks suit the times when it fades.
Can you do deep work without GTD?
Deep work needs one task and a written goal per block of focused work. GTD is one way to choose that task.
Most days, I know my next task without much planning. End each day by noting in one sentence what you’ll start with tomorrow.
