📝 Workbook · Business · Unit 6

Workbook · 6B — Deep work

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Exercise 1

Exercise 1 — Focus & meeting lexis

Complete each sentence with ONE phrase from the box.

Word bank — drag or tap, then tap a gap
  1. I  drop  my Slack and email triage into two 20-minute windows a day — otherwise it's continuous.
  2. Wednesday is a team  drop  — no internal calls before 3pm.
  3. That's not a decline, that's a counter-offer: let me  drop  that  drop  4pm — I'll be better prepared.
  4. I'm not being difficult — I'm  drop  so we ship the strategy doc on time.
  5. Frame it as 'I'm  drop  when I do writing in the morning' — the manager sells that upward.
  6. Honestly? That two-hour review meeting —  drop .
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Exercise 2

Exercise 2 — Gerund or infinitive?

Put the verb in brackets in the correct form.

  1. I decided ___ (decline) the Friday sync — nothing was going to happen in it.
  2. Would you consider ___ (move) our 1:1 to Tuesday afternoon?
  3. Please remember ___ (send) the pre-read 24 hours before the meeting.
  4. I remember ___ (send) it — I have the email in my sent folder from 4pm.
  5. I'm interested in ___ (protect) Wednesday mornings for team-wide deep work.
  6. She refused ___ (cancel) the stand-up, even though nobody had anything to say.
  7. I look forward to ___ (hear) how the pilot goes.
  8. Try ___ (batch) your email into two 20-minute windows — see if it changes your afternoons.
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Exercise 3

Exercise 3 — Same verb, different meaning

Choose the correct form (gerund or infinitive) for the meaning in brackets.

  1. I stopped (to check / checking) email at 6am. (…I quit that habit)

  2. I stopped (to check / checking) email at 6am. (…I paused what I was doing to look at email)

  3. Please remember (to cancel / cancelling) tomorrow's meeting. (…it isn't cancelled yet)

  4. I'll never forget (to cancel / cancelling) that meeting — it saved us six hours a week. (…I already did it)

  5. I tried (to protect / protecting) Wednesday morning. (…I made the attempt — it may have failed)

  6. Try (to block / blocking) Wednesdays — it might work. (…experiment with this technique)

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Exercise 4

Exercise 4 — Rewrite as a focus-time negotiation

Rewrite each blunt statement into a sentence a manager can say yes to — with the correct gerund/infinitive.

  1. 'I don't want to come to your Monday meeting.'
  2. 'Stop scheduling stuff on Wednesday mornings.'
  3. 'I forgot to reply to your Slack.'
  4. 'I hate all these meetings.'
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Exercise 5

Exercise 5 — Three people defend their focus time

You'll hear three people push back on a new company-wide Monday 9am stand-up. Decide whose case the director should take to the CEO.

🎙️ Three people defend their focus time — multi-voice

  1. Which speaker wins the case?
  2. Which speaker sounds precious and loses the room?
  3. Which speaker never actually says what she wants?
Show transcript

Zoe (Jonas):My mornings are sacred. I don't do meetings before 11 — that's just how I work. A 9am stand-up on Monday is exactly the kind of interruption that kills my whole week. Count me out. I'll read the notes.

Elias (Amara):Here's the thing: Monday 9am is my only 3-hour deep-work block of the week. A 30-minute stand-up at 9am doesn't cost 30 minutes; because of context-switching, it costs the whole 3-hour block. Would you consider shifting it to Tuesday, as a 3-line async update by 10am? If a live conversation is needed after everyone's read the updates, someone books a 15-minute call — not the whole team. I'd want this on the record for the team, not just for me. I'm most useful to you when I use Mondays to draft.

Anya (Chichi):Oh, um, yeah — I mean, obviously if it's really needed, of course, I don't want to be difficult. Mondays are usually pretty busy, but I can make it work, I think. Maybe. If everyone else is going. Um. It's fine, really, it's fine.

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Exercise 6

Exercise 6 — Write your focus-time ask

Pick one real recurring meeting on your calendar you'd like to change or kill. Write the 3-sentence ask (max 60 words). Sentence 1: 'I'm most useful to the team when ___'. Sentence 2: the number that quantifies the cost. Sentence 3: ONE counter-proposal a manager can say yes to.

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Exercise 7

Exercise 7 — Case study reflection: Meridian Labs

Think about Meridian Labs (140 people, 27 hrs/week of meetings for the average IC, 2 senior engineers threatening to leave). Answer the questions.

  1. You're the new COO. Draft the ONE opening sentence of your first all-hands. You cannot start with 'let's all be more mindful'.

  2. You can ship 3 of 4 policy levers on Monday: (a) no-meeting Wednesdays, (b) shrink defaults 30→20 / 60→45, (c) required pre-read + named decision-maker for meetings >30min, (d) convert standing meetings to async. Pick 3 and justify.

  3. The two senior engineers threatening to leave: what do you do in 5 working days?

  4. Write the ONE-line meeting rule you'd pin to every new invite.

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