Make time by Jake Knapp & John Zeratsky

Focus on one priority per day, re-evaluate, repeat.

Make time by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky. A book comprised of a series of practical suggestions for how to do more meaningful things. Importantly, the authors emphasise that this is not simply doing ‘more’ or everything (along the lines of David Allen’s GTD). They propose a daily system of having a single ‘highlight’ and then putting in place a series of practices to help facilitate it happening.

Some of the tactics are written about extensively elsewhere, including: only check the news once weekly, blocking yourself accessing the internet, deleting email off your phone, and switching off all phone notifications.

Key points:

• Knowledge workers are caught by the need to appear busy and yet simultaneously there is endless distractions
• The ‘Make time methodology’: focus on meaningful things, one per day, and facilitate it happening
  • It won’t always go to plan so take each day at a time and try to make as many good ones as possible
• Pick one priority per day (a highlight) that can be something that is: urgent, important but not urgent, or brings happiness
  • It can roll over (or even should)
• Picking a ‘highlight’:
• Write out all your priorities and rank them, review and revise as often as needed.
  • Work can come above family for a period and move back round when needed.
  • Write down only top and 2^nd priority projects, then their associated tasks, and everything else get chucked together.
  • Batch boring tasks (e.g. email can occasionally be a highlight) but must be infrequent
  • Keep something as highlight as long as needed
  • Block out your calendar to set aside time: at least 2 hrs
  • Adapt to being a morning or night person to make time
  • Drop out of commitments to facilitate getting your highlight done
• Keep focused
  • Delete apps and log out from social media on your phone. Have a clear Home Screen and no notifications
  • Check news only weekly
  • Set up specific barriers for anything you find especially hard to resist (e.g. Twitter)
  • Use holiday timer to turn off internet at certain time or app to block off internet
  • Batch email to once at end of day
  • Break cycle of rapid responding to email by being slow
  • Use simple tools, ideally on paper, so not tricking yourself into thinking you’re working e.g. spending a long time using a complex system may feel like work even if it isn’t
  • Allow yourself to be bored or stuck with a problem, resist temptation to let your mind go elsewhere
    • It is precisely when you feel stuck on a problem that you are most likely to have a breakthrough
• Maintain energy for focus:
  • Do something active outside in nature each day (e.g. walking)
  • Try using either snacking or intermittent fasting to keep focus
  • Get up without coffee and none after 4pm
  • Have green tea in between coffee (to keep its effect)
  • Take breaks without headphones to prevent constant focus
  • Meditate
• Reflect on your performance and what techniques you tried each evening
  • Then start over the next day, keeping what works

There are a lot of ‘productivity’ books. I think that if you can take one, useful tip or implementable point from a book then that’s a win. Many other authors have mentioned focusing on a single thing each day but here there is an inescapable emphasis on it. Aside from the benefit in output, it feels like a success to achieve the one thing you had planned.