You’re sitting at your desk, you should be working, but you can’t get into it. You scroll, you rearrange things, you check your email. At the end of the day you were busy, but nothing real got done.
This article gives you the way in as one fixed sequence, from your body to a written goal. You also get what to do when the start still fails. And you see why the next block is easier to get into.
Why is it so hard to get into deep work?
Deep work doesn’t switch on by itself. Your head is still on the last task, and everything around you pulls at it. So you set the state up instead of waiting for it.
The switch itself is real work. Sophie Leroy studied it in two experiments (Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 2009), and she puts it like this. “People need to stop thinking about one task in order to fully transition their attention and perform well on another.”
That’s what the preparation is for. It removes every disruption and distraction ahead of time and gets body and mind into their best possible state. Flow is the aim of the whole sequence, not the condition for starting.
Check your body before you sit down
Preparing starts with you, not with the desk. If you’re tired, no start sequence will help, so treat this check as the prerequisite.
Before every block, ask yourself honestly whether you’re awake and can think clearly. Don’t fool yourself, because the answer decides your block:
| Your state | Your block |
|---|---|
| Fit | 45 or 90 minutes, full power |
| Not quite fit | Shorter block or activate your body first |
| Massively tired | Power nap (10–20 min.) or postpone the block |
Three small things help, in this order. Eat little or nothing before the block, air the room for three minutes, and drink a glass of water. Your body should be busy thinking, not digesting.
The last body step comes right before the block, not 30 minutes earlier. One to two minutes of a mini workout is enough, such as 50 jumping jacks or 20 squats. It wakes your body up for the work.
Clear everything that can pull you out
Once your body is ready, turn to everything around you. Every disruption you remove before the timer starts is one you don’t have to fight during the block. Most of them are predictable and preventable, and the phone comes first.
- Phone: off and hidden in a drawer or cabinet in another room, not just on silent.
- Quiet: windows and doors closed; tell the people around you you’re unavailable.
- Desk: only monitor, keyboard, mouse, notepad and pens, lighting, a glass of water.
- Computer: close email, chat, social media and every app and tab you don’t need; Do Not Disturb on.
- Two sheets: a blank protocol sheet for goal and work steps. A blank thought sheet to park stray thoughts; pen ready.
- Earplugs or headphones: as a shield against noise, no music.
Ward, Duke, Gneezy and Bos ran two experiments. The mere presence of people’s own smartphone reduced their available cognitive capacity.
The effect was largest for those most dependent on their phone (Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, 2017). A 2023 meta-analysis of 22 studies found only a small overall effect (Böttger, Poschik & Zierer, Behavioral Sciences).
For me, airplane mode and Do Not Disturb weren’t enough. Every time the phone entered my line of sight, I thought about notifications. Now it’s off, in a drawer in the hallway.
On the computer, close the programs from the previous task first. Then nothing on your screen keeps you in the old task.
Switch into work mode with one minute of breathing
After all that, your head is still in preparation mode. Breathing is the conscious switch from preparing to working. Use the bathroom first, though: you just drank water and moved, so go now, not mid-block.
Close your eyes and use Box Breathing. Breathe in for 4, hold for 4, breathe out for 4, hold for 4, then start over. One to two minutes or 10 breath cycles is enough.
The breathing clears the thoughts that are left over from preparing, so you start the task with a clear mind. It feels silly at first; do it anyway.
Decide on music and set the timer
With a clear head, two quick decisions open the block. First, music: skip it, because music takes up mental capacity you need for the task. The headphones stay on as a shield.
Then set the timer, your starting gun. It tells your brain the work has an end, which makes starting easier, especially with unpleasant tasks. Choose the block length by your current state:
- 90 minutes: maximum fitness and motivation.
- 45 minutes: fit, focused, motivated. Ideal.
- 35 minutes: somewhere in between; 45 feels too long.
- 25 minutes: unfocused today.
- 15 minutes: strongly unmotivated; better than nothing.
Go through this list from top to bottom and stop at the duration that still feels doable. For creative tasks, pick a longer block so you aren’t pulled out of flow; for routine tasks, a shorter one.
When in doubt, start shorter. You can always go over.
Write down your goal, then start
The timer runs, and now the block needs a target. A goal in your head stays vague, but writing it on paper pulls you into the task. That’s the moment you get into deep work.
- Write the end goal as a state already reached: “Article is published”, not “Write article”.
- Add an intermediate goal (optional): the next milestone, e.g. “Article is fully written”.
- Write the block goal: what you’ll have in this block, e.g. “First draft of the outline is done”.
- Note the next action (optional), the smallest step you can take now. Example: “Open document and jot down three bullet points for the outline”.
- Start.
Phrase every goal as a completed state: “is done”, not “do”. Make the block goal ambitious but doable; too big means paralysis, too small means no drive. It’s the result you want from this block, and the measure of it.
Writing several lines for one task feels excessive at first. Do it anyway: when your focus slips, one look at the sheet tells you what you’re doing and why.
After that you’re in the work, with no more rituals or transitions.
What if you still can’t get into deep work?
Sometimes you write the goal and still drift. Getting stuck is not a reason to end the block.
If you only try to find your way back in your head, you go in circles. The pen forces you into clarity, because you can’t write down a step without knowing what it is. Pick the tool for what’s happening:
| What happens | What you do |
|---|---|
| A thought pulls you away | Catch it, write a keyword on the thought sheet, return |
| You lose track of what you were doing | Write the next mini step on the protocol sheet, do it |
| You’re stuck on a problem | Describe it in one sentence, then the smallest next step |
| Nothing works at all | Switch to a different aspect of the same task |
When I lose my way in a task, I write down the next mini step. Just thinking about it brings me back into the task, and the written step becomes my anchor.
If you notice you’re massively tired, that’s the answer to your self-check, not a willpower problem. Go back to the body check.
Why the next block is easier to get into
All of this is the full start for your first block. Once your space is set up, the next one takes only a handful of steps.
Desk, phone and headphones are already taken care of. All you need is:
- Air out, refill water.
- Activate your body briefly.
- Bathroom.
- Breathe.
- Timer, goal, go.
Make the restart easy before you stop: note the last and the next step on the protocol sheet. Then you can pick up right after the break instead of spending the first minutes working out where you stopped.
Clean up after every block too, which makes the next start faster. After a few weeks the process is a deep work routine. You stop thinking about the steps, you just do them.
That routine is built one block at a time. Add the steps for stopping, the break and the end of the day. Then you work with focus all day. See how it works →
FAQ
How long does it take to get into deep work?
The often-cited 23 minutes is not how long it takes to get into deep work. It’s how long interrupted work took to be resumed (Gloria Mark, Gallup Business Journal interview, 2006). In the sequence above, you’re in once the goal is written.
Is getting into deep work the same as getting into flow?
No. Getting into deep work is something you do; flow is what the whole sequence aims at.
When it flows, keep going, even past the timer. The point of the block is the result, not the minutes.
Should you drink coffee before deep work?
Caffeine masks tiredness, it doesn’t fix it. Test one deep work block with coffee and one without, and compare the output, not the feeling. If you need a lift, try water or a mini workout instead.
Do you need a fixed time to get into deep work?
Deep work blocks don’t have to start on the hour. Some people like a fixed schedule, others feel pressured by it.
Find out what works for you. Prepare your space before each block; from the second block on, it’s already set.
