in the modern world we've all got an
endless list of stuff that we could be
doing the more we get done the more we
have to do if we want to make time for
the most important stuff the stuff that
actually matters we can't just do it by
spinning our gears faster and faster
instead we need a more holistic approach
to our daily routines priorities and
lives hey friends welcome back to the
channel into the third episode of book
club the series where I summarize the
key insights and ideas from some of my
favorite books and today we're talking
about make time by Jake Knapp and John
Zaretsky how to focus on what matters
everyday Jake and John both used to work
at Google they've spent their careers
designing products like Gmail YouTube
and Google Hangouts
so they've got a unique insight into why
these services are so compelling and how
to prevent them from taking over our
lives make time is a sort of
productivity book and but it presents
this four part framework for how we can
focus on the things that matter most to
us and on top of that between these four
bits of the framework we've got 87
different tactics in the book and kind
of one of the main premises is that it's
not a very kind of prescriptive
productivity book it's more a case of
recognizing that there's no
one-size-fits-all approach to
productivity and so the point is that
you have a look through you understand
the framework and then you sort of pick
and choose the tactics that work for you
but before we get to the framework and
the tactics let's start with an
important question and that is why is
life so busy so there's two main things
that contribute to this but the main
ones are the busy bandwagon and infinity
pools the busy bandwagon is the idea
that being busy is somehow a badge of
honor we all and I'm definitely guilty
of this as well we try and squeeze
productivity into every minute of the
day
and at least for me even if I'm taking a
break I feel a little bit guilty that
I'm not doing something useful with that
time in a way it's this constant fear
that if I slow down I'm gonna fall
behind and even when we have so much to
be grateful for like at least for me
there's still this fear that it's all
gonna come crashing down unless I keep
going at 100 miles per hour then we've
got infinity pools whoo infinity pools
are the apps and services websites
whatever anything in our life that has
sort of an infinite supply of content
that is always refreshing there's always
more water in the pool you can jump back
in at any time pre actually call it a
kryptonite distraction kryptonite in the
book you know we had this thing that
that you know just as kryptonite renders
a Superman powerless you know this
whatever app
and whatever service it is a sort of
makes us powerless to resist the busy
bandwagon defaults to endless tasks the
infinity pools default to endless
distraction
okay so we've identified the problems
the busy bandwagon and the infinity
pools but the issue is that without a
proper framework for dealing with this
we tend to rely on willpower our kind of
philosophy with that stuff is that
because those become habitual actions
they're not things where you're actively
deciding to go and spend time on that
that service or that app but you're
doing it out of habit that you can't
rely on willpower to counteract that
force and there's actually a ton of
research on this so this is not an
original observation but but its habits
versus willpower like the habits are
gonna win so what we need is a system
that we can build a productive habits
around and that is where the full pot
framework comes in make time is based on
a simple structure of four steps
repeated every day highlight laser
energize and reflect when we started to
write about the stuff we wanted it to be
not a single recipe step one step two
step three but more like a cookbook and
so we wanted to have a lot of different
recipes that you could use depending on
what worked for you what clicked for you
yeah imagine you get a cookbook and and
there's a bunch of different stuff and
nobody gets a cookbook and you're like
alright page one you know first recipe
time to make it you know nobody does
that you kind of flip through you find
the things that look good to you and so
that's the way the book is structured
and then and then we kind of put this
framework around it and we said like we
don't care which tactics you use we
don't care if you use a tactics that are
in the book or other stuff but we think
that that if you kind of think about
those tactics those specific things that
you're doing think if those follow or
kind of fit into this four-step
framework you're going to be successful
the first step is deciding what we want
to actually make time for and that
involves figuring out what is our daily
highlight the highlight hypothesis is
that if you set a single intention at
the start of each day we predict you'll
be more satisfied joyful and effective
the idea of the daily highlight is that
each day we'll choose a single activity
that we'll prioritize and protect in our
calendar the highlight can kind of be
anything it can be finishing off a piece
of work or you know doing a workout or
even just going for a walk it's not the
only thing that we're going to be doing
but it's the thing that we want to
definitely make time for that day as
Jake and Jon say in the book focusing on
a daily highlight stops the tug-of-war
between infinity porters
actions and the demands of the busy
bandwagon it reveals a third path being
intentional and focused about how you
spend your time since reading this book
a few months ago every single day I now
set for myself a daily highlight and
that's the thing that I have to get done
and even though I've got a load of other
things on what to do this I just always
make sure that that is the one thing
that I do the next step is how do we
pick our highlight each day and it can
literally be whatever you want but John
and JP save that if you're struggling to
pick a daily highlight you can think of
it in one of three ways urgency
satisfaction and joy the point is as
long as we set a focus for the day that
allows us to kind of make time for it
and in the book they've got seven
different tactics for how to figure out
what our daily highlight is and then
they've got a load of different methods
for actually making the time for that
highlight the one that I use is that
each morning whether I'm doing my daily
check-in on notion or if I'm writing it
down on a piece of paper I will just
write a little H and that'll be my
highlight of the day and then when I'm
planning my day out in my head I will
kind of plan out okay I want to do my
daily highlight between 2:00 and 4:00
p.m. today so now that we've picked our
daily highlight step number two in the
four part framework is laser and the
laser hypothesis is that if you create
barriers around the busy bandwagon and
infinity pools we predict that you'll
focus your attention like a laser beam
and this is all about defense so if the
first step is offense you know what do I
want to make time for laser is defense
so it's how do I manage my attention how
do I avoid getting sucked into all the
other stuff that's going on in the world
so that I can stay focused on that thing
that matters and and this is where our
background as tech designers really I
think comes in handy because who we can
we can share sort of this
behind-the-scenes approach of like okay
this is why this stuff is distracting
our philosophy there's is to really kind
of understand those mechanisms so that
you can cut them off you can like break
those habits so that you don't have to
like you know clench your fists and like
use willpower to like resist checking
stuff it's just not there for you and
here's another nice quote from the book
they say that when distraction is hard
to access you don't have to worry about
world power you can channel your energy
into making time instead of wasting it
so the point is because we know we're
going to get distracted by our devices
you know the instant gratification of
these and
cause we need to ramp up the friction so
that it physically makes it harder to
use the things the book actually has 44
different tactics that we can pick and
choose from to manage all of the various
distractions in our lives and to really
lays it down
obviously that's way too many for a
YouTube video but there were a few that
were new to me when I read it a few
months ago and that I've actually
started using in my life so we've got 23
skip the morning check-in 30 watch out
for time craters 32 turn distractions
into tools 39 reset expectations 50
explode you highlight and 60 go all-in
if you want to find out more about those
than firstly have a copy of the book
it's very good book but secondly John
and I discussed quite a lot of these in
depth during our like two hour long
conversation if you want to check it out
the whole two-hour uncut interview is
available on nebula and what we started
doing recently as well is that with all
of the deep dives that I'm doing we're
kind of cutting them up into bite-sized
chunks for a new bite-size series on
nebula if some reason you haven't heard
nebula is an independent streaming
platform that me and a bunch of other
creative friends are helping to build
it's not like a competitor to youtube
but it's a place where we can put random
content like a two-hour interview or
like you're ten bits of bite-sized or
kind of really niche videos where I talk
about my productivity workflows to get
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streaming anyway going back to the book
the third part of the process is
energized and the energized hypothesis
is that if you live a little more like a
prehistoric human we predict you're
enhance your mental and physical energy
the third step is is a bit different and
it's about energy and so it's kind of
based on the idea that
like when we're reading about or
thinking about you know how we're
spending our time or focused on we tend
to focus on our brains you know it's all
about the decisions that we're making
and those types of things but but we
we've all felt we'd all kind of
experience this struggle that if your
body's not well your brain doesn't work
you know you don't get enough sleep you
drink too much you whatever it might be
like you you know that feeling is there
but but our culture does not encourage
us to think about our bodies and brains
as being one system so so that's why
that's why step three energize is there
and it's all about really simple ways
that you can take care of yourself so
that you have energy for that stuff that
you that you really care about like this
stuff is really important and I know I
don't pay as much attention to it as I
should like for me I love finding and
like discovering a new productivity app
that will change my workflow and make a
video about it and all this stuff but
actually if I just focused on sleeping
on time eating well and drinking lots of
water and exercising that would probably
do more to boost my productivity then
discovering research or notion or
whatever fancy new app is popular this
week and I've actually done quite a few
things about food sleep exercise and
caffeine from reading make time tactic
70 in the list for example is pretty
cool before reading that I'd wake up in
the morning and the first thing I'd do
would be to drink a cup of coffee to
kind of wake myself up but what they say
here is that our body's like natural
cortisol wakes us up about an hour after
we first wake up and so we should then
let the caffeine kick in at that point
because that keeps us awake for longer
and it also means we're not interfering
with their own body's cortisol
mechanisms and tactic 84 for example is
fake the sunset and that's this idea
that our bodies are designed to go to
sleep when we see the Sun setting so
when all the light gets warm but the
problem is that with all our devices and
stuff we've got this like blue life
glaring at us at all times and so after
reading that what I started to do is I
switched the Phillips hue light bulbs
and the whole house to have a very sort
of warm glow and I've got these like
blue light blocking glasses that I add
to my actual glasses a few hours before
bed and that makes everything go yellow
which means I'm kind of blocking the
blue light and in theory that should
increase the quality of my sleep or
something like that as ridiculous as
they look and finally all three of these
steps would be kind of pointless if we
didn't then reflect on what we're doing
to see if it actually makes a difference
to our day fourth step might actually be
the most important
it's one that I think is oftentimes
missing and it's reflect and it's all
about kind of looking back every day and
taking notes on what worked for you and
so this is where kind of this
do-it-yourself sort of adjust and adapt
part of the the philosophy comes in this
is kind of the mechanism for going
through all those 87 recipes and finding
the ones that work is this idea of this
daily reflection so step four is all
about reflecting on our day and at the
end of the book they've got this sample
template that we can use to base our own
daily reflection off of and so my daily
reflection that I do at the end of each
day on notion I've built an ocean
template using input from make time and
also from my friend Valentin or did a
deep dive with more of nebula about that
if you want to check it out and also
from a fantastic book called story
worthy by Matthew dicks that I'm going
to do a book club episode on at some
point in the future so at the end of our
deep dive interview I'll see on if he
had any parting advice for the for the
people watching the most important thing
that I want people to take away from
from this interview and from all the
work that I do is that you need to find
a way to establish your own system you
need to kind of get in the routine and
the habit of experimenting and trying
things and and sort of believe that your
time and your attention and your energy
are yours to like to design and to
experiment with and and you need to do
that because you know you can't just you
can't just do what somebody else has to
do you can't just like you know read a
book and and follow the steps in your
life will be perfect you've got to kind
of take ownership of that make your time
your own experiment with it and figure
out how it works for you
this whole productivity stuff isn't
about reading a book or watching a video
and then that's it we should all be in
control of our own time and if we're not
then we need to understand a framework
experiment with different techniques and
ultimately make time our own thank you
for watching