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    Interactive assessment

    Focus & Deep Work Audit

    Measure your capacity for sustained, high-quality cognitive work across four dimensions: deep work capacity, distraction management, energy alignment, and boundary protection.

    Newport's research on deep work shows that the ability to focus without distraction on cognitively demanding tasks is becoming both increasingly rare and increasingly valuable. Knowledge workers who can produce at the highest level in the fewest hours have a significant performance advantage over those who are always accessible but rarely fully concentrated. This audit measures where your capacity for deep, valuable work is strong and where fragmentation, distraction, or poor energy management is limiting what you can produce.

    Questions or items
    20 questions or items
    Completion time
    Around 10 minutes
    Dimensions
    Deep Work Capacity, Distraction Management, Energy Alignment, Boundary Protection
    What you receive
    Personalised results with result bands, section scores and development guidance.

    What it covers

    • Deep Work Capacity
    • Distraction Management
    • Energy Alignment
    • Boundary Protection

    Rate each statement from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree). Rate your current practice as it actually is, not how you would like it to be.

    Results: Personalised results with result bands, section scores and development guidance.

    How this interactive diagnostic works

    Read what it covers here first. Nothing is saved or sent until you continue. Your result is calculated once every required item is answered.

    If it asks for your first name and work email, you enter them in the diagnostic itself. This page sends nothing.

    Statements in this diagnostic

    Statements are grouped by section. Answer each one for the situation named in the instructions, using the scale shown.

    Deep Work Capacity

    Your ability to enter and sustain states of focused concentration on complex, demanding work. This is the raw material of high-value output.

    1. I regularly carve out blocks of uninterrupted time for complex, demanding cognitive work
    2. I can sustain concentration on a challenging task for 60 minutes or more without losing focus
    3. My best cognitive work happens at predictable times of the day, and I protect those windows deliberately
    4. I feel genuine momentum when working on difficult problems without context-switching
    5. I can start a complex task and stay with it, even when easier tasks are tempting me away

    Distraction Management

    How effectively you control the inputs competing for your attention. Distraction is not a personal failing, it is an environment and habit challenge that can be solved.

    1. I turn off or silence notifications during focused work periods
    2. I batch email and message checking at set times rather than responding to each one as it arrives
    3. My physical or digital workspace is set up to support the quality of work I need to do
    4. I have strategies for managing unexpected interruptions that prevent them derailing my focus for the rest of the session
    5. I rarely find that a planned focus block has been eaten into by notifications, messages, or unplanned requests

    Energy Alignment

    Whether you are matching your most demanding work to your peak cognitive energy. Timing matters as much as duration: the same hour of work has very different output depending on when it happens.

    1. I know which time of day I do my best thinking, and I schedule my most important work during those hours
    2. I protect the start of my day for high-value work rather than letting it be consumed by meetings and admin
    3. I match task type to energy level, doing demanding analytical or creative work when I am at my sharpest
    4. I am aware of my energy patterns across the week and plan my workload accordingly
    5. I take meaningful breaks between focused work blocks that genuinely restore my concentration rather than prolonging fatigue

    Boundary Protection

    How effectively you hold the conditions that make deep work possible. A calendar full of other people's priorities is the most common barrier to valuable focused work.

    1. I am comfortable declining or rescheduling meetings that would interrupt a planned focus block
    2. I communicate my availability clearly to colleagues so they know when I am in focused working mode
    3. I use techniques or rituals that help me transition deliberately into and out of deep work
    4. My diary reflects my priorities, not just the priorities of others who want access to my time
    5. I regularly review whether my weekly schedule is giving me enough protected time for the work that matters most

    How the result is read

    Your answers are totalled for each section and overall. Each total falls into one of the bands below.

    • Attention at Risk, 20 to 44: Your current working pattern is making deep, high-value work very difficult. Fragmentation, distraction, and reactive availability are the likely culprits. The good news is that this is almost entirely a systems and habits problem, not a capability problem. Start by identifying one two-hour block per day where you close all inputs and focus on your most important work. Protect it for two weeks and track the difference in output.
    • Reactive Mode, 45 to 64: You are capable of focused work but your current environment and habits are making it inconsistent. You likely have good intentions around focus but find them regularly undermined by availability culture, calendar fragmentation, or energy misalignment. Identify your lowest section: that is where the most accessible improvements are.
    • Developing Focus, 65 to 82: You have a solid capacity for deep work and reasonable systems to protect it. Improvements at this level tend to come from precision rather than wholesale change: finding the exact right timing, sharpening distraction controls, or strengthening boundary habits in specific contexts.
    • High Focus Capability, 83 to 100: You have strong deep work habits across all four dimensions. You are likely producing disproportionate output relative to the hours you spend. At this level, the focus shifts to sustaining the conditions that make it possible and coaching others towards the same capability, since your team's collective focus is the ceiling on what your unit can produce.

    Sources named in this diagnostic

    • Newport, C. (2016) Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World. New York: Grand Central Publishing.
    • Ariely, D. (2010) Predictably Irrational, Revised Edition. New York: HarperCollins.
    • Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990) Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York: Harper & Row.
    • Mark, G., Gudith, D. and Klocke, U. (2008) 'The cost of interrupted work: more speed and stress', Proceedings of CHI 2008, pp. 107-110.

    Where to take the next step

    Our management development programmes build practical skills for focus, conversations and delivery.

    Explore Management Development

    Frequently asked questions

    What does the Focus & Deep Work Audit measure?

    Newport's research on deep work shows that the ability to focus without distraction on cognitively demanding tasks is becoming both increasingly rare and increasingly valuable. Knowledge workers who can produce at the highest level in the fewest hours have a significant performance advantage over those who are always accessible but rarely fully concentrated. This audit measures where your capacity for deep, valuable work is strong and where fragmentation, distraction, or poor energy management is limiting what you can produce.

    How many questions are in the Focus & Deep Work Audit?

    It contains 20 questions grouped into 4 dimensions: Deep Work Capacity, Distraction Management, Energy Alignment, Boundary Protection.

    How is the Focus & Deep Work Audit scored?

    Responses are totalled within each section and across the diagnostic, and each total falls into a result band.

    What happens after I complete the Focus & Deep Work Audit?

    Once the required items are answered, you enter your first name and email to see your results: an overall interpretation, section scores and development guidance.

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