Four workdays, four focus scores, and what each one is telling you

Here is a day that scored 63: one and a half hours of real work, surrounded by meetings. And here is one that scored 54: five hours of real work, in pieces. If you only looked at the number, you would conclude that the meeting day was better.

A focus score is only useful if you can read it. We took the parts apart in another post. This one runs four invented but realistic days through the formula the app actually uses, so you can recognise your own.

The formula, in four lines

• Deep work, 30 points. Productive hours divided by six, times 30. Full marks at six hours.
• Context switching, 25 points. Starts at 25. The first five switches each day into a distracting or entertainment app are free, and each one after that costs 1.5 points.
• Low distraction, 25 points. The share of your tracked time that was not spent in distracting or entertainment apps.
• Focus streak, 20 points. Your longest unbroken productive run, with full marks at two hours. A gap of up to five minutes does not break a run, but a switch into a distraction does.

Fractions round down. The labels run Needs Work below 40, Fair from 40, Good from 55, Great from 70 and Excellent from 85.

Day one: the maker's day

Six productive hours, a longest run of two hours, three switches into distractions, and twenty minutes of distraction in a seven-hour day.

Part	Points
Deep work	30 of 30
Context switching	25 of 25
Low distraction	23 of 25
Focus streak	20 of 20
Total	98, Excellent

What to change: nothing. Do look at what made it possible, though, because those conditions are worth reproducing on purpose. Open the Timeline and see what your morning looked like. Also notice that six hours gets full marks. A seventh earns no more, and we built it that way so the app would not cheer for overwork.

Day two: the day of meetings

Eight hours at the Mac. An hour and a half of productive work, a longest run of 40 minutes, four switches into distractions, and no distraction time to speak of. The rest is video calls and mail.

Part	Points
Deep work	7 of 30
Context switching	25 of 25
Low distraction	25 of 25
Focus streak	6 of 20
Total	63, Good

This is the score people find surprising. FocusLens files calls and mail as communication, and communication is not a distraction, so two of the four parts stay full. You were not distracted. You just did not make anything.

What to change: if meetings are your job, then 63 is a good day, and you should stop comparing it with a maker's day. If they are getting in the way of your job, look at deep work alone across the week. Seven out of thirty on four days out of five is a calendar problem, and it is now a number you can show someone.

Day three: the scattered day

Five productive hours, which is plenty. But the longest run is only 25 minutes, there are nineteen switches into distractions, and an hour of an eight-hour day went on distracting apps.

Part	Points
Deep work	25 of 30
Context switching	4 of 25
Low distraction	21 of 25
Focus streak	4 of 20
Total	54, Fair

Five hours of work, and it scores below the meeting day. That is the score doing its job: the same hours are worth less when they arrive in 25-minute pieces.

What to change: open the App Switcher. Worst Offenders names the apps responsible and Switch Chains shows the bursts. Usually one app is doing most of the damage. Getting from nineteen switches to eleven earns 12 points by itself, and the streak will tend to rise with it, because a switch into a distraction is exactly what ends a run. Set a limit on the distracting category in Goals and let the alert tell you when you hit it.

Day four: the day that was filed wrong

A writer spends five hours in a drafting app that FocusLens has never heard of, so it lands in Neutral. Their longest run is ninety minutes, with two switches into distractions.

Part	Filed as Neutral	Filed as Productive
Deep work	0	25
Context switching	25	25
Low distraction	25	25
Focus streak	0	15
Total	50, Fair	90, Excellent

Same day and same person, with a 40-point difference from a single setting. If your score feels wrong day after day, and deep work and streak both sit near zero, this is the first thing to check.

What to change: Settings › App Categories › Manage. Search for the app, choose Productive, and every past day recalculates. It takes less time than reading this section.

Using this on your own days

Look at which part is low, then match it up:

• Deep work and streak both near zero, the rest full. Either your main app is misfiled or you spent the day in meetings. The Timeline will tell you which.
• Deep work fine, streak and switching low. You have the hours but not the runs. Go after one interrupting app.
• Low distraction falling. That one is plain enough.
• Everything high. Write down what you did.

Do not compare your score with anyone else's. A manager's 63 and a programmer's 63 are different days. Compare yourself with last Tuesday.

FocusLens does this on your Mac, with no account and no permission to track. It is free for three days, then $19.99, once. Download it and see which of these four you have been having.