u/West-Stand-8733

Hello guys, nothing interesting about me, im just a 21 years old engineering Student like any other student in the world. I was the kind of person spending my time randomly, whenever i feel to study i do, whenever i need to fix papers, buy my room supplies, i do, same thing for my other hobbies like sport or cooking or even gaming. The thing is that the activities other than studying were just ignored most of the time under the pressure of studying.

That was for me how life can be, i mean u have time and u just spend it on something, but my vision started to change since i read Deep Work book of Cal Newport and i knew that our brains have a time in the day, with a maximum of 4 hours of deep focus, where your brain is on its maximum potential. Those 4 hours are meant to be the time where u do everything that costs the most energy, like studying for example or working for freelancers. And the rest of the tasks that consume minimum energy from the brain, or they are just not main tasks, are meant to be not crucial in our career. Lets say sport for students for example, or house chores or even shopping.

This experience and this idea is the origin of my will to create an app about it, and i already did, but it’s still in development, and to be specific, in the test phase, so i dont need users, im here to discuss the idea. I do really believe in the deep/shallow work theory, and the app is based on that. Simple idea, create blocks for the whole week, days and month, deep blocks for deep work, shallow blocks for the shallow ones, u track ur progress with the review section and u can also put long-term goals for the future.

The idea is also dedicated to ADHD people, because i was also inspired by how my friend who has ADHD lives his life in general.

i wont make it longer, just honest feedback. You as a user, student or worker or whatever, how do u find the idea? u imagine urself using such an app in your life?

I’m an engineering student, and for a long time I thought my main problem was just not having enough hours in the day for the gym, martial arts, writing, or my side projects. Turned out that wasn't it at all.

My real issue was that whenever I tried to do heavy brainwork, like studying, reading dense papers, or writing stuff up, it took forever and turned out mediocre. Why? Because I was treating it like easy, low-effort tasks: working with half my attention, phone right next to me, constantly stopping to reply to messages every ten minutes.

The easy, everyday stuff, admin work, news, chores, errands, is just basic maintenance to stay on top of things, and that was never what was eating my time. The real issue was that doing heavy thinking in a shallow way made the hard work take twice as long. It swallowed up so much of my day that by the time I finished the "real work," I had zero time or energy left for things I actually cared about. Those hours weren't stolen, they just never existed in the first place.

Cal Newport's book Deep Work was what made this click for me. Protecting a focused session from quick distractions doesn't just feel less stressful, it literally makes the work get done faster and better in the exact same amount of time. Once I started actually locking in protected time for studying and research, and threw all the shallow stuff, like email, messages, admin, into its own separate batch, my hard work took way less time and turned out much better. Efficiency actually gave me my day back, not willpower.

To make this habit stick long-term, instead of just having one good week and giving up, I built Bareplanner. It's a planner inspired by Deep Work, built around that exact split rather than just being another generic to-do list app:

Two Types of Time Blocks: You structure your week around Deep blocks, which are protected, zero-distraction focus time for heavy stuff like coding, studying, or writing, and Shallow blocks, which are batched quick tasks like email, admin, and replying to people.
Execute View: A simple view that shows you only what to do next, complete with a focus timer and built-in break cycles, so you don't end up talking yourself out of working mid-session.
Weekly Review: A weekly check-in that shows what focus time you actually protected versus what fell off, so you know if your system is actually working before a whole month slips by.

Anyway guys, I’d love to get your take on this app idea and see if you agree with how I'm looking at this? Have you noticed the same thing with your own workflow, or has your experience been different?

i was inspired by Cal newport theory and ADHD friend and wanted to make it real

I’m an engineering student, and I finally realized my issue wasn't time management, I was just doing hard work the shallow way