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Make Time - Focussing on what matters

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Ever felt yourself wondering where all the time in the day went? Or asked yourself why the things you wanted to do haven't got done? This book might be what you're looking for.

Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky worked for Google. They helped redesign Gmail and You Tube. Then they worked out a way to redesign how they spent their time. They share their tactics in this book Make Time: How to focus on what matter every day.


As you might imagine, I really like the idea of doing more of what matters by wasting less time.

Two big things that steal our time

The Busy Bandwagon is the "culture of constant busyness - the overflowing inboxes, stuffed calendars and the endless to-do lists". Much of this not really necessary.

Infinity Pools are "sources of endlessly replenishing content". Social media, TV and streaming services are examples. Obviously when there is no end to the content, there's no limit to how much time they can suck away from you. 

Apparently the average person watches 4+ hours of TV and spends 4+ hours on their smartphone each day. Together that's effectively a fulltime job.

Breaking away from the default

As former Google engineers, Jake and John realise the power of default settings. And life is full of them. But this book is for those who don't want to live a default life. It's for people who want to improve how we use our time (ie. our lives) and "Make Time" for the things that matter.

How do they do it?

The book includes a menu of more than 80 tactics to choose from. Jake and John's strategy is to have a highlight each day, to focus on tasks without distraction, to use your energy wisely, and reflect on how things went.

They say not all tactics work for everyone (themselves included - some work for John but not for Jake, or vice versa) and so we should experiment to find the tactics that work for us.

Topics and Tactics

Each topic has several tactics you might use to achieve it. Topics include how to choose your highlight, how to make time for it, avoiding infinity pools, managing email, dealing with your phone, staying in the zone, and managing physical and emotional energy.

The end result is that we can do more of the things that matter to us by reclaiming time that would have otherwise slipped through our fingers - or been spent on low-value activities.

Tech tips

As both Jake and John worked for Google, their insights for avoiding tech distraction were particularly interesting. They say the average user unlocks their phone 80 times per day and makes 2,617 touches on the screen.

They also advise not to wait for technology to give you your time back. Tech companies make money when you use the product, so they make great products that you'll always want to use.

Some of these are "superpowers" that improve your life (eg. maps, video calls, books on your phone). But the firehose of technology means that with those superpowers comes a bunch of addictive distraction.

So it's up to us to redesign our relationship with technology. Fortunately, their are heaps of tactics for that in the book.

Some involve changing tech settings, some involve changing habits, and some are a bit left-field - eg. wearing a wristwatch (tactic #21).

Surprise ending

Even though both authors are technology-loving guys, they each found that their "highlights" were in other places and no longer work for Google.

Related Reading

See my other book reviews - including Offline, Time and How to Spend It and Digital Minimalism

Subscribe to my monthly-ish email for notifications about future book reviews.

Jake and John also have extra resources online

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