First-Hour Deep Work Sprints
Give your best, most uncluttered energy to your own work before anyone else's.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 90%
Dumas notes that most people wake up and immediately dive into email and social media — other people's problems, outrage, and demands — so by the time they turn to their own work they're already drained. To write his book he flipped this: phone in airplane mode, only his Word document open, and two hours of writing every morning. He works in sprints, not straight through, using a 42-minute timer followed by 18 minutes of rest. Two 42-minute blocks a day, giving the best part of his day to the book, produced 71,000 words across six months and finished the manuscript ahead of schedule.
Origin
Writing his first traditionally published book in 2020, Dumas committed to dedicating the first two hours of every day to nothing but the book, protecting his freshest energy from email and social media.
Core principles
- 01The first hours of the day are your most mentally productive and should go to your own meaningful work.
- 02Starting the day on email and social media spends your best energy solving other people's problems.
- 03Timed sprints make daunting work feel manageable and protect against distraction.
- 04A small, protected daily block compounds into large output over months.
How to run it
- 1
Protect your first hours
Reserve the earliest, most energized part of your day for your own most important work before touching anyone else's requests.
Pro tip Put your phone in airplane mode and keep it there until the block is done.
- 2
Remove every distraction
Open only the single document or tool the work needs; no email, no social media, no notifications.
Pro tip Do your coffee, tea, and hydration routine first so nothing pulls you away mid-sprint.
- 3
Work in timed sprints
Set a timer for a focused sprint — Dumas uses 42 minutes because it's productive but not daunting — and work with zero distractions until it rings.
Pro tip Pick a sprint length that feels achievable, not intimidating.
- 4
Rest, then repeat, then stop
Take the remaining minutes of the hour to stretch, meditate, or breathe, run a second sprint, then stop for the day even if you feel like continuing.
Watch out Resist doing more than your capped blocks — the discipline of stopping keeps the practice sustainable.
In the wild
Dumas wrote for two 42-minute sprints each morning with his phone off and only his Word document open, resting 18 minutes between sprints and stopping after two blocks.
→ He wrote 71,000 words and 273 pages in six months and finished the book ahead of schedule.
Common mistakes
Starting the day on email and social media
Diving into other people's problems and outrage first drains your best energy, so your own work only gets your depleted, distracted attention.
Working in long unbroken stretches
Grinding straight through without timed rest makes the work feel daunting and unsustainable; sprints keep it manageable.
Is it for you?
Best for
Creators, writers, and knowledge workers with a big self-directed project to produce.
Not ideal for
Roles that genuinely require immediate morning responsiveness to others, or people not building a long project.
From the transcript
“I knew that if it was going to be a great book that I was going to dedicate the first two hours of every day…”
“42 minutes is really a great time for me to work so I like to work for 42 minutes I set a timer”
From the episode
John Lee Dumas: Productivity Hacks to Work Smarter, Not Harder
John Lee Dumas