Deep Work
A simple timer for each path. Start it when you sit down for focused work, stop it when you're done — it accumulates your deep-work time per path and lets you flag milestones (or auto-flags them at hour benchmarks). The same timer lives at the top of every path page; this is the all-in-one-place view.
Saved in your browser — no login, this device.
The idea — Deep Work meets 4DX
This is built on Cal Newport's Deep Work (chapter 5), which borrows the Four Disciplines of Execution(4DX, by McChesney, Covey & Huling). The core insight: you can't directly control the outcomeyou want — passing an exam, finishing a path. That's a lag measure: by the time it moves, the work is already behind you. What you can control is the hours of focused, distraction-free work you put in — the lead measure. So you track the thing you actually move: deep-work time. You keep a visible scoreboard (people play differently when score is kept), and you circle a win when you achieve something real. Watching the hours accumulate is the motivation.
How this tool works — and our design choices
- ·One timer per path, saved in your browser. No login, no backend — it's your private tally on this device. Start it when you sit down to focus; stop it when you're done. It sums into your per-path total.
- ·The real unit is exact minutes. The timer records to the minute and shows your total as
Xh Ym. The +25 / +50 buttons are only a shortcut for logging a block you did without the timer running (you forgot to hit Start). - ·Why 25 and 50? Honest answer: those are the Pomodoro convention (25-minute focus blocks), not from Newport — he tracks in whole hours and actually favors longer, unbroken stretches. We picked familiar defaults for the quick-log buttons; they're a convenience, not a rule. (15 / 30 / 45 would be an equally fine choice — ask and we'll switch them.)
- ·Milestones — manual + auto. Flag one yourself whenever you feel you've hit a real achievement (Newport's “circle the win”). We also auto-flag milestones at hour benchmarks — 1, 5, 10, 25, 50, 100 hours — as a lightweight nudge. The auto ones are our addition, not part of the original method, and they're labelled auto.
- ·What we deliberately left out. No goals-vs-targets, no weekly-review scoring, no dashboards. Deep work is served by a simple, honest tally you'll actually keep — not a productivity cockpit. If a full 4DX scoreboard (targets, reviews, hours-per-milestone) turns out to be what you want, we can layer it back on.
Source: Cal Newport, Deep Work (2016), ch. 5; 4DX from The 4 Disciplines of Execution(McChesney, Covey & Huling). Pomodoro Technique: Francesco Cirillo.