Protecting Deep Work

Focus is a competitive advantage.

Five standards. One protected window. One commitment to each other.

The Cost

Every interruption costs more than the interruption.

23MIN

Average time to regain deep focus after a single interruption.

At typical interruption rates
2+ hours of productive time lost per person, per day.

Across the team that's the equivalent of one full-time role spent context-switching. We can recover most of it.

The Standards

Five commitments. Non-negotiable.

01

Self-solve first

Search HubSpot, NetSuite, SharePoint, and AI before asking a human.

02

Escalate smart

Peer first. Then team lead. Then senior. Respect the chain.

03

Respect focus hours

9–11 AM is protected. No taps. No DMs. No pings.

04

Ask in Teams, publicly

One question. One answer. Everyone benefits from the thread.

05

Hold the line

We coach each other on this. Repeated breaches get raised in 1:1s.

Before You Interrupt

Work the ladder.

Each rung exists for a reason. Skip them and you cost someone else their focus.

1
Check the systems
HubSpot, NetSuite, SharePoint, the website. Most answers are already documented.
2
Ask AI
Claude or Copilot will answer most operational questions in seconds.
3
Ask a peer in Teams
Someone at your level has likely hit the same thing. Post publicly so others benefit.
4
Ask your team lead
If peers can't resolve it, escalate. Wait until after focus hours unless it's blocking.
5
Escalate to senior / CEO
Only for decisions that need their specific authority or strategic input.
Protected Time

One window. Two hours. No interruptions.

Morning
9:00 – 11:00 AM

Complex problem-solving. Strategic thinking. Anything that needs your full brain.

Urgent means
Customer impact/Critical system failure/External deadline you cannot move

Everything else: send a Teams message or email. They'll respond when the window closes.

The Commitment

Discipline creates freedom.

The discipline to wait, to search, and to respect each other's focus gives every one of us the freedom to do our best work.