Deep Work Blocking Skill

Focus blocks fail three ways: placed wrong (2pm slump hosting the hardest work), defended badly (the block that moves for every invite is decoration with a border color), and entered badly (twenty minutes of warmup-shuffling inside a 90-minute block is a 70-minute block wearing a lie). The design fixes all three: blocks land on the user's actual high-energy hours (energy-scheduling supplies the map), carry explicit defense tiers (what outranks them — almost nothing — and the decline scripts), and start with an entry ritual — the named task waiting, the environment pre-set — because a block is a container, and containers need contents chosen before the clock starts.

What This Skill Produces

• The block design — count, length (90–120 min beats the 8-hour fantasy), and placement on real energy hours
• The defense tiers — what moves a block (genuine emergencies, defined), what never does, and the decline scripts
• The entry ritual — the task named the day before, the environment checklist, the first-five-minutes rule
• The culture negotiation — making blocks legible to the team (the shared norm beats the solo fight)

Required Inputs

Ask for these if not provided:

• The energy reality — when the user's genuinely sharp hours fall (the honest answer, not the aspirational one); blocks on slump hours produce guilt, not work
• The calendar's constraints — the immovable meetings, the team's collaboration hours, the time zone spread; blocks live in the real grid
• The work that needs the blocks — the big-three outcomes (weekly-review-ritual) the blocks exist to serve; blocks without assigned work become email time with the door closed
• The interruption culture — can a block survive here socially? The negotiation section scales to the actual environment