If your calendar is full of meetings and fragmented tasks, you’re not alone. Most professionals struggle to protect time for deep work — that focused, distraction-free zone where meaningful progress happens.
That’s where Reclaim AI comes in.
In this article, I’ll walk you through how I use Reclaim to automatically carve out time for deep work sessions, reclaim my mental clarity, and get more done — without fighting my calendar.
Step 1: Define Deep Work Blocks
First, I created a recurring habit inside Reclaim called “Deep Work.” I set it to:
Repeat Monday to Friday
The last 90 minutes
Preferred time: mornings between 9:00 a.m. and noon
Calendar status: Busy
This tells Reclaim to automatically protect that time, shifting it if needed.
💡 Pro tip: You can set a buffer before and after deep work so Reclaim avoids stacking meetings around it. That way, you ease into and out of deep focus without stress.
Step 2: Set My Work Hours
I told Reclaim when I’m available for work: weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. With this context, Reclaim avoids booking deep work during lunch, breaks, or late in the day when energy dips.
This also helps prevent conflicts with personal time or errands — because the system knows what counts as “off-limits.”
Step 3: Sync With My Calendar
I connected Google Calendar so Reclaim can:
Respect existing events
Find open focus windows
Move deep work blocks if something urgent is scheduled
Reclaim doesn’t just plan once — it continuously adapts. If a team meeting gets rescheduled, Reclaim repositions your deep work block without you lifting a finger.
🔁 It acts like a defensive line for your calendar — keeping distractions out and giving you space to create.
Step 4: Add Other Smart Habits
Reclaim isn’t just for deep work. I added recurring blocks for:
Weekly planning (Monday morning)
Email cleanup (30 mins, twice daily)
Reading and learning (every afternoon)
End-of-day shutdown (15 mins, with checklist)
These micro-routines give structure to my day. Instead of reacting to everything, I know I’ve carved out time to process, plan, and reset.
💡 I even use Reclaim to block time for lunch and mental breaks — essential for maintaining long-term focus and avoiding burnout.
Step 5: Let It Run — and Adjust
After a week, I reviewed the analytics in Reclaim. It showed me:
How much focus time did I get
When it was most likely to be rescheduled
Patterns in interruptions
This data helped me fine-tune my system:
I increased the priority of deep work
I limited meeting slots to afternoons
I adjusted my habit durations to be more realistic
It’s like managing your time budget, with AI giving you insights.
Bonus: Integrate With Your Workflow
To get the most out of Reclaim, I integrated it with other productivity tools:
Notion for weekly and project planning
Slack to show focus status automatically
Google Tasks to pull high-priority to-dos into my deep work sessions
You can even use Reclaim’s AI prioritization to reshuffle your week based on urgency or estimated effort.
This turns your calendar into a living productivity engine.
Why It Works
Reclaim combines time blocking with intelligent automation. It doesn’t just “hope” you’ll find time to focus — it actively creates it, defends it, and adapts it.
Instead of juggling 100 to-dos in your head, you offload the “when” to a tool that keeps track and evolves with you.
For anyone drowning in to-dos, meetings, and Slack notifications, this is a game changer.
📖 Related: Top AI Tools to Plan and Structure Your Day Effectively