Make Time
How to Focus on What Matters Every Day
Want to Make Time? Well, Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky (JZ) have the system to help you, as per the sub-title of their great book: “Focus on What Matters Every Day.’ Jake and JZ met at Google. Jake had worked on Gmail and JZ on YouTube before they connected at Google Ventures. While there, they worked with a ton of startups in which Google invested (including Uber, Slack and 23andMe) on a project-development system they created called “Sprint.” This book is all about resetting our culture’s default settings by stepping off of what they call “the Busy Bandwagon” while jumping out of “Infinity Pools” of distraction to optimize our energy, focus, and time. It’s a GREAT book that echoes a ton of what we talk about all the time. Big Ideas we explore include how to make time in four steps: Highlight (what's today's focal point?) + Laser (vs. disco balls) + Energize (be a good Homo sapien) + Reflect (it's all one big experiment!).
Big Ideas
- Busy Bandwagons and Infinity PoolsAnd Infinity Pools.
- Make Time in Just Four steps, Repeated every dayHighlight + Laser + Energize + Reflect. <- Repeat every day.
- HighlightWhat’s today’s focal point?
- Laservs. Disco balls.
- Pre-inPut wins: Skip the Morning Check inSkip the morning check in.
- EnergizeBe a good Homo sapien
- ReflectIt’s all one big experiment.
“Do you ever look back and wonder ‘What did I really do today?’ Do you ever daydream about projects and activities you’ll get to someday—but ‘someday’ never comes?
This is a book about slowing down the crazy rush. It’s about making time for things that matter. We believe it’s possible to feel less busy, be less distracted, and enjoy the present moment more. Maybe that sounds a little hippy-dippy, but we’re serious.
Make time is not about productivity. It’s not about getting more done, finishing your to-dos faster, or outsourcing your life. Instead, it’s a framework designed to help you actually create more time in your day for the things you care about, whether that’s spending time with your family, learning a new language, starting a side business, volunteering, writing a novel, or mastering Mario Kart. Whatever you want time for, we think Make Time can help you get it. Moment by moment and day by day, you can make your life your own.”
~ Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky from Make Time
Want to Make Time?
Well, Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky (JZ) have the system to help you, as per the sub-title of their great book: “Focus on What Matters Every Day.’
Alexandra got this book. I saw it, took a quick look at it. And ran up to the office to start reading it. (Hah. Seriously.) The experience was not unlike another super-fun book we recently featured: Mel Robbins’ 5 Second Rule. (Thanks, Babes!)
Jake and JZ met at Google. Jake had worked on Gmail and JZ on YouTube before they connected at Google Ventures. While there, they worked with a ton of startups in which Google invested (including Uber, Slack and 23andMe) on a project-development system they created called “Sprint.” (They wrote a book on that as well. I got it on my friend Pilar Gerasimo’s rec. Still need to read it!)
This book is all about resetting our culture’s default settings by stepping off of what they call “the Busy Bandwagon” while jumping out of “Infinity Pools” of distraction to optimize our energy, focus, and time.
It’s a GREAT book that echoes a ton of what we talk about all the time. (To put it in perspective, their “Time Dork” recommended reading list includes some of my all-time favorites we’ve featured: Deep Work by Cal Newport, Getting Things Done by David Allen, The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, Mindset by Carol Dweck, In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan, Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari and Irresistible by Adam Alter.)
I HIGHLY recommend it. Get a copy here.
Of course, it’s packed with Big Ideas. In fact, they share 87 bite-size tactics to Optimize. I’m excited to share a few of my favorites we can use to Make Time Today so… Let’s jump straight in!
Download MP3
Download PDF
Get the BookBusy Bandwagons and Infinity Pools
“Both forces—the Busy Bandwagon and the Infinity Pools—are powerful because they’ve become our defaults. …
There are defaults in nearly every part of our lives. It’s not just our devices; our workplaces and our culture have built-in defaults that make busy and distracted the normal, typical state of affairs. These standard settings are everywhere. Nobody ever looked at an empty calendar and said, ‘The best way to spend this time is to cram it full of random meetings!’ Nobody ever said, ‘The most important thing today is everybody else’s whims!’ Of course not. That would be crazy. But because of defaults, it’s exactly what we do. In the office, every meeting defaults to thirty or sixty minutes even if the business at hand actually requires only a quick chat. By default other people choose what goes on our calendars, and by default we’re expected to be okay with back-to-back-to-back meetings. The rest of our work defaults to email and messaging systems, and by default we check our inboxes constantly and reply-all immediately.
React to what’s in front of you. Be responsive. Fill your time, be efficient, and get more done. These are the default rules of the Busy Bandwagon.
When we tear ourselves away from the Busy Bandwagon, the Infinity Pools are ready to lure us in. While the Busy Bandwagon defaults to endless tasks, the Infinity Pools default to endless distraction. Our phones, laptops, and televisions are filled with games, social feeds, and videos. Everything is at our fingertips, irresistible, even addictive. Every bump of friction is smoothed away.
Refresh Facebook. Browse YouTube. Keep up on the nonstop breaking news, play Candy Crush, binge-watch HBO. These are the defaults behind the ravenous Infinity Pools, devouring every scrap of time the Busy Bandwagon leaves behind. With the average person spending four-plus hours a day on their smartphone and another four-plus hours watching TV shows, distraction is quite literally a full-time job.”
Welcome to the Introduction.
Let’s meet our enemies in our pursuit to Make Time: “Busy Bandwagons” of endless tasks and “Infinity Pools” of endless distraction.
You know how your phone comes with “default settings”? Well, Jake and JZ tell us that so does the rest of our lives. Therefore, step #1 in our quest to Optimize is to step back and actually SEE those default settings that are currently running outside of our awareness. Then, of course, we’ll do something about it—which is the focus of the book and our next Idea.
In Originals, Adam Grant talks about “defaults” as well. In fact, he shares data that demonstrates the fact that simply changing your default browser on your computer is correlated with higher levels of initiative.
Here’s how he puts it: “The hallmark of originality is rejecting the default and exploring whether a better option exists. I’ve spent more than a decade studying this, and it turns out to be far less difficult than I expected.
The starting point is curiosity: pondering why the default exists in the first place. We’re driven to question defaults when we experience vuja de, the opposite of déjà vu. Déjà vu occurs when we encounter something new, but it feels as if we’ve seen it before. Vuja de is the reverse—we face something familiar, but we see it with a fresh perspective that enables us to gain new insights into old problems.”
Make Time is a framework for choosing what you want to focus on, building the energy to do it, and breaking the default cycles so that you can start being more intentional about the way you live your life. Even if you don’t completely own your schedule—and few of us do—you absolutely can control your attention
Make Time in Just Four steps, Repeated every day
“The four daily steps of Make Time are inspired by what we learned from design sprints, from our own experiments, and from readers who have tried out the framework and shared their results. Here’s a zoomed-out view of how each day looks:
The first step is choosing a single highlight to prioritize in your day. Next, you’ll employ specific tactics to stay laser-focused on that highlight—we’ll offer a menu of tricks to beat distraction in an always-connected world. Throughout the day, you’ll build energy so you can stay in control of your time and attention. Finally, you’ll reflect on the day with a few simple notes.”
Ready to Optimize your defaults? Welcome to the Make Time framework. Four steps:
H
ighlight
.
Decide what your #1 most important thing is for the day. (In
their words:
“
Start Each Day by Choosing a Focal Point.
”
)
Laser
.
Eliminate distractions as you FOCUS on that #1 thing!
(In
their words:
“
Beat Distractions to Make Time for Your Highlight.
”
)
Energize
.
Optimize your body so your mind can rock it. (Aka:
“
Use the Body to Recharge the Brain.
”
)
Reflect
.
Get a little better every day by checking in on what worked/what needs work.
(
Aka:
“
Adjust and Improve Your System.
”
)
Repeat. That’s “How to Focus on What Matters Every Day.”
Each of those steps has its own section in the book packed with high-level thoughts and nuts-and-bolts tactics. (Again, 87 of them.) (Bonus: Jake is a great artist. The book is peppered with his fun doodles to bring the wisdom home.)
Look, we love technology. But there is a very serious problem here. Combine the four-plus hours the average person spends on their smartphones with the four-plus hours the average person spends watching television, and distraction is a full-time job.
Highlight
“We believe that focusing on these in-between activities—in the space between goals and tasks—is the key to slowing down, bringing satisfaction to your daily life, and helping you make time. Long-term goals are useful for orienting you in the right direction but make it hard to enjoy time spent working along the way. And tasks are necessary to get things done, but without a focal point, they fly by in a forgettable haze.
Plenty of self-help gurus have offered suggestions for setting goals and plenty of productivity experts have created systems for getting things done, but the space between has been neglected. We call this missing piece a Highlight.”
Welcome to Step #1.
Jake and JZ make a great distinction about that weird gap that exists between our super-inspiring goals and that endless list of stuff we need to do to achieve those goals.
They tell us: “We want you to begin each day by thinking about what you hope will be the bright spot. If, at the end of the day, someone asks you, ‘What was the highlight of your day?’ what do you want your answer to be? When you look back on your day, what activity or accomplishment or moment do you want to savor?”
So… What’s the Highlight of YOUR day going to be Today?
P.S. They tell us that we want to pick a Highlight that’s about sixty to ninety minutes long. Any less and we might not get in the zone. Any longer and our brains might melt. :)
P.P.S. As we discussed, the book is PACKED with fun “tactics” (again: 87 of them to be precise) to help us Make Time. The #1 tip in the whole book? “Write It Down.”
They say: “Yes, we know it may sound obvious, but there’s a special, almost magical power to writing down your plans: The things you write down are more likely to happen. If you want to make time for your Highlight, start by writing it down.”
P.P.P.S. You write down YOUR Highlight for Today yet? :)
And yet it would be a relief in a way not to be bothered with it any more . . . Sometimes I have felt it was like an eye looking at me . . . I found I couldn’t rest without it in my pocket.
Every time you check your email or another message service, you’re basically saying, ‘Does any random person need my time right now?’ And if you respond right away, you’re sending another signal both to them and to yourself: ‘I’ll stop what I’m doing to put other people’s priorities ahead of mine no matter who they are or what they want.’ Spelled out, this sounds insane. But instant-response insanity is our culture’s default behavior. It’s the cornerstone of the Busy Bandwagon.
Laser
“This chapter is about a state of mind called Laser. When you’re in Laser mode, your attention is focused on the present like a laser beam in the moment. You’re in the flow, fully engaged and immersed in the moment. When you’re laser-focused on your Highlight, it feels fantastic—it’s the payoff for proactively choosing what’s important to you.
The word Laser might sound intense, but if you’ve chosen a Highlight and cleared time, there doesn’t have to be anything hard or complicated about it. When you’re doing something you care about and have the energy to focus, Laser mode simply appears.
Unless . . . you get distracted. Distraction is the enemy of Laser mode. It’s like a giant disco ball in the path of your laser beam: Light goes everywhere except in the direction of the target. When that happens, you can easily end up missing out on your Highlight.”
Step 1. We select our Highlight. (What will be the focal point of our day?!) Step 2. We schedule the time and focus like a Laser on that most-important thing. Enter: A deep sense of joy as you drop into Flow and do what YOU decided is most important.
Or… We could skip the Laser and step into the Distraction Disco and watch our Laser dissolve into a disco ball. (Oops.) (And… Hah.) Always our call.
Recall the Motivation Equation. Motivation = Value x Expectancy / Impulsivity x Delay.
We start by making sure we’re fired up about whatever it is we’re going after (Value!) then we multiply that by our confidence we can achieve it (Expectancy). THEN… We need to make sure we don’t disco-ball our attention via distractions (Impulsivity) or we’ll kill our Motivation.
(And… Note that by setting daily, doable Highlight-micro goals we’re also creating momentum Progress Principle style and reducing the Delay that could also thwart our Motivation!)
The #1 thing that gets out of our Laser zone of flow focus? Those shiny “Infinity Pools” of distraction, of course. Jake and JZ walk us through their take on the challenges of the attention economy that we talk about in Conquering Digital Addiction 101 and Cal Newport talks about in Digital Minimalism 101 (and in Digital Minimalism).
Technology is, of course, AWESOME. And… We need to take control of our experience by re-setting our “default” mode of interacting with all the tools available. They offer a bunch of GREAT tips on how to do that—ranging from creating a “distraction-free” phone (clear your home screen, eliminate social media, email and notifications; use it for the simple, non-Infinity Loop stuff) to wearing a simple watch so you don’t need to use your phone just to tell time.
P.S. Fun historical facts on watches: “In 1714, the British government offered a £20,000 prize (that’s $5 million in 2018 money), to anyone who could invent a portable clock that could be used aboard ships. It took nearly fifty years and dozens of prototypes until finally, in 1761, John Harrison created the first ‘chronometer.’ It was a technological marvel that changed the world even though it was barely portable—the clock had to be mounted in a special cabinet and stowed belowdecks for its maiden voyage across the Atlantic Ocean aboard the HMS Deptford.
Today you can buy a portable clock—that is, a digital quartz wristwatch—for ten bucks. It’s always accurate. It’s lightweight and waterproof. It can wake you up after a nap or remind you to take dinner out of the oven. It’s an amazing piece of technology.”
Apple reports that people unlock their iPhones an average of 80 times per day, and a 2016 study by customer-research firm Dscout found that people touched their phones an average of 2,617 times per day. Distracted has become the new default.
Pre-inPut wins: Skip the Morning Check in
“When you wake up in the morning, whether you slept for five hours or ten, you’ve had a nice long break from the Busy Bandwagon and the Infinity Pools. This is a golden moment. The day is fresh, your brain is rested, and you have no reason to feel distracted yet. No news items to stress about, no work emails to stew over.
Savor it. Don’t reach for email, Twitter, Facebook or the news right away. It’s very tempting to do a check-in first thing in the morning and get the latest updates; after all, something in the world always changes overnight. But as soon as you fire up that screen, you start a tug-of-war of attention between the present moment and everything out there on the Internet.
Put it off. The longer you postpone the morning check-in—until 9 a.m., 10 a.m., or even after lunch—the longer you preserve that feeling of rested calm and the easier it is to get into Laser mode.”
Welcome to Tactic #23—my favorite tip in the Laser section and perhaps my favorite tip of all.
In our Optimize Coach certification program, we spend six (!) weeks helping our prospective Coaches master the art and science of architecting their ideal days. We have them start with the PM Bookend the night before then the AM Bookend and then systematically Optimize their Energy + Work + Love as we look to Carpe Diem.
The #1 tip we suggest for the AM Bookend/Deep Work goodness? Basically, exactly what Jake and JZ describe here. We call it creating a “Pre-Input WIN.” Before you allow any inputs into your world, do some Deep Work. Focus on your Work Highlight. Like a Laser.
In addition to dropping into Flow more and more effortlessly while doing what you’ve decided matters most you also, as they say, “preserve that feeling of rested calm.” We call that “energized tranquility.” Its nemesis? “Enervated anxiety.”
So… Back to you. Any plans pre-inputs tomorrow? :)
P.S. The next tactic, #24, is all about eliminating your #1 “Distraction Kryptonite.” Yours?
You know the antidote to exhaustion is not necessarily rest. . . . The antidote to exhaustion is wholeheartedness.
Energize
“So far in this book, we’ve talked about ways to make time by choosing where to focus your effort, adjusting your calendar and devices, and blocking out distractions to boost attention. But there’s another, even more basic way to make time. If you can increase your energy every day, you’ll turn moments that might otherwise be lost to mental and physical fatigue into usable time for your Highlights. …
Choosing a Highlight and getting into Laser mode are the core of Make Time. But the secret sauce is Energize. Our thesis is simple: If you have energy, it’s easier to maintain your focus and priorities and avoid reacting to distractions and demands. With a full battery, you have the power to be present, think clearly, and spend your time on what matters, not default to what’s right in front of you.”
Energy. It ALL (!!!) starts here. Period. (Exclamation point!!)
Jake and JZ talk about Yuval Noah Harari and his brilliant book Sapiens and tell us: “At a time when the modern world seems crazy, it’s helpful to remember that Homo sapiens evolved to be hunter-gatherers, not screen tappers and pencil pushers.”
Tactics to Optimize our Energy include moving like a caveman (aka exercising every day, walking a lot, etc.) and eating real food (not too much, mostly plants a la Michael Pollan!) with a bonus section on how to Optimize caffeine intake (including their version of a Nappuccino! :)
Small distractions create much larger holes in our day. We call these ‘time craters.’ ... In one of our favorite studies ever, Gloria Mark of the University of California, Irvine found that it takes people twenty-three minutes and fifteen seconds to get back on task after a distraction.
Reflect
“Don’t worry. Science is simple. Sure, some of it—particle accelerators, astrophysics, photon torpedoes—can be a little tricky. But the scientific method itself is straight forward:
1. OBSERVE what’s going on.
2. GUESS why things are happening the way they are.
3. EXPERIMENT to test your hypothesis.
4. MEASURE the results and decide whether you were right.
That’s pretty much it. The scientific know-how behind everything from WD-40 to the Hubble space telescope all came from following those four steps.”
Reflect. It’s our fourth step. We Highlight. We Laser. We Energize. Then we throw on our lab coats, (joyfully!) run some experiments, collect the data and… OPTIMIZE!!
Let’s do a quick experiment now.
OBSERVE. What’s going on in your life these days?
GUESS. Why do you think things are going the way they are? And… What do you think you might be able to do to Optimize a bit Today?
EXPERIMENT. OK. Run an experiment. Test that hypothesis in the laboratory of your life!
MEASURE. How’d it go? What’d you learn? +1. Repeat. +1. Repeat. +1. Repeat.
As they say, “You are a sample size of one, and your results are the only results that really matter. This kind of everyday science is what ‘Reflect’ is all about.”
Seriously though… What’s one experiment you can run Today?
We each spent years in Silicon Valley, where one of the favorite terms is pivot. In startup-speak, a pivot is when a company starts out doing one thing but realizes that a related (or sometimes unrelated) idea is more promising. If they have enough confidence (and funding), they’ll pivot to the new direction.
About the authors
