Published January 01, 2026
2025 - Year in Review
Closing the third year of trydeepwork
Happy New Year!
This is the third year in review for trydeepwork. I write this to share how the tool is actually used, what changed meaningfully, and what turned out to matter more or less than expected.
2025 in Review
- 29,420 hours of focus logged. That is roughly 14 full-time work years of focus.
- Peak focus hour shifted from 2 pm in 2024 to 10 am in 2025.
- Monday is the #1 day for focus sessions.
- 35.6% of sessions happen between 10 pm and 4 am.
Below is a review of the most meaningful changes shipped in 2025. Each grade reflects how useful the change has been to me as a user. An "A" is "this was a good one." An "F" is "it should not have survived." The rest are assigned on vibes.
What changed in 2025
microWork sessions
These were added to reduce the friction of starting. I use them less than I expected, but around 10% of all sessions are microWork sessions, which tells me they solve a real problem for some users. Their real value is nudging work to start at all.
Final grade: B
Time Dots
I love this feature. This is one of those things that quietly changes behavior. In one glance, I can tell how much time I have invested, whether I have overshot, and which tasks are being neglected. Over time, this changed how I pick what to work on next.
Final grade: A
Step Breakdown
Steps show up directly in the session UI and make it easier to work through large or fuzzy tasks. I mostly use this on bigger tasks, but when I do, it clarifies thinking that would otherwise stay fuzzy in my head.
Final grade: B
Session Scheduling and Google Calendar Integration
This is an area where the early versions were clearly bolted on.
Scheduling and calendar integration existed before, but they felt clunky and unintuitive enough that I did not really rely on them. Over 2025, this slowly got refined to the point where it started feeling usable.
The biggest value here is intent. Scheduling a session ahead of time separates the decision from execution. Still room to improve, but it finally crossed the line from "nice idea" to something I actually use.
Final grade: B
Abandon tasks and Auto-abandon
About 23% of tasks are abandoned, and 98% of those happen automatically. This significantly reduces decision fatigue and clutter. Completion is not the only form of progress. Sometimes abandoning matters more.
This is the best thing I shipped in 2025.
Final grade: A+
Goodbye measures, hello milestones
I would give the measures functionality a solid F. It failed to be useful to me at any point, and I fundamentally implemented it with the wrong assumption. While my original intention was something else, it ended up becoming an OKR-like tracker that I never updated and found confusing.
I have killed this feature and replaced it with milestones, which feels more natural and closer to how progress actually feels. It is too early to grade this, but the direction feels right going into 2026.
What is next in 2026
I am spending time on the gap between planning and doing. Right now you can schedule what you want to work on, take up challenges, and it is too easy to just not do it. I want those two things to meet better.
Otherwise, I will keep fixing small things that annoy me in day-to-day use, removing and refining things that do not pull their weight, and tightening parts that still feel rough.