Twenty-three major singles titles, built on the same drills repeated for years — plus a habit of writing notes to herself and reading them back when the match got hard. Here is her imagined day.
Serena Williams
Tennis champion · Deep Work Duck · one match at a time
Today's Focus 3/3
🐸 Practise the second serve until it is boring
The weakest shot gets the first hour, not the last.
Read back my own match notes before the warm-up
Match day · reminders in my own words
Serve drills — same corner, again
Training · repetition over variety
🧠 Brain Dump 4
The toss drifts left when I am tired
Ask for the earlier practice court next week
Write the changeover note now, not during the match
Rest is part of the plan, not a reward for finishing
Pomodoro
🐸 Second serve
25:00
Projects 3 active
The seasonfrog lives here
Training
Off court
💡 Ideas Wall
What if the point I lost teaches me more than the one I won?
What you can learn from Serena Williams
Give the weak shot your best hour.
It is comfortable to rehearse what is already good. The shot you avoid is the one that decides the season — so it goes first, under the timer.
Write notes to yourself, then read them back.
She has described keeping written notes and reading them during matches — reminders in her own words, at the moment they are needed. That is exactly what a Brain Dump is for.
Repetition beats variety.
Twenty-three major titles were built on the same drills, done again. A plan that looks boring on paper is usually the one that works.
A pause is not a reset.
She won a major title in 2017 while pregnant, then came back and kept competing at the top. Time away does not delete the work — pick the plan up where you left it.
Sources: her book On the Line (2009), published interviews, and her record of 23 Grand Slam singles titles. Details are simplified for illustration.
An imagined workspace. This page is an editorial illustration of
Serena Williams's well-documented habits, shown inside DuckDoro. It is not affiliated with, or
endorsed by, Serena Williams, her estate, or any related company — and the only face on this
page belongs to a duck.