what is deep work?
deep work is defined as "distraction free concentration that pushes cognitive abilities to their limit." The fruits of a deep work session are usually hard to reproduce and create new value. see the book Deep Work by Cal Newport.
why should I care?
the ability to go deep is becoming increasingly rare. to be able to go deep gives one an enormous economical advantage over others.
what is shovel?
shovel is a productivity tool to help you go deep in your work. it aims to provide a sleek and simple way to organize your thoughts, minimize distractions, and stay consistent with getting things done.
how does shovel help?
shovel puts the past, present, and future in one space so your mind can focus on the work in front of you. your goals and tasks are for future work, your work grid is for making sure you committed hours of deep work towards your goals every day, and your journal is for jogging down ideas, progress notes, and updates so that there's never too many distracting thoughts running through your mind at once.
Goals and Tasks
Track goals with start and end dates, and add sub-tasks to prioritize and maintain remaining work. Give tasks individual tags to help categorize types of work (coming soon: filtering and searching by tag)
Daily Journal
Write down progress made, notes, ideas, and anything else on your mind in a daily journal entry. Your entry can be edited throughout the day, but is locked once the day is over. This is to keep you focused on current affairs instead of worrying about the past.
Work Grid
Quickly record how many hours of deep work you were able to get in each day, indicated by dots in a weekly grid so it's easy to see at a glance the kind of time you are able to dedicate towards your goals. Give a day a special highlight to show you accomplished something that day and be reminded that hard work pays off.
Daily Check In
Check in each day and maintain a streak so you know you're putting in the time every day and building momentum.
Multi-User Rooms
Join or create up to 5 different rooms, each with up to 5 people, so you can keep up with what your friends/coworkers are up to, get the latest updates, offer support, provide accountability, or be inspired. See everyone's goals, tasks, journals, hours, and streak in the same room and updated in real time.
Themes
Choose from over 30 themes or customize your own so that your workspace feels like yours.
"I really enjoy using shovel as it makes my days so much more productive. It allows me to see exactly what I want to get done, what I've accomplished, and I can look back at past journals and refresh myself on what I've studied in past days. It helps me to organize task, thoughts, and makes me feel more accomplished!"
-Anonymous
"Shovel is really good because it's simple, elegant and authentic -- you can tell someone is making it with love because they want to help people."
-Anonymous
"As someone with ADHD, I LOVE that you can see everything at once."
-/u/Ecstatic-Report6131
"I love that this can be used for teams, too. And it's SUPER simple, an uncluttered UI, no confusing 'pages' to sort through - the least amount of clicks for me to see everything."
-/u/Suspicious-Main4788