Make Time
How to Focus on What Matters Every Day
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4.4 • 26 Ratings
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
From the New York Times bestselling authors of Sprint comes “a unique and engaging read about a proven habit framework [that] readers can apply to each day” (Insider, Best Books to Form New Habits).
“If you want to achieve more (without going nuts), read this book.”—Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit
Nobody ever looked at an empty calendar and said, "The best way to spend this time is by cramming it full of meetings!" or got to work in the morning and thought, Today I'll spend hours on Facebook! Yet that's exactly what we do. Why?
In a world where information refreshes endlessly and the workday feels like a race to react to other people's priorities faster, frazzled and distracted has become our default position. But what if the exhaustion of constant busyness wasn't mandatory? What if you could step off the hamster wheel and start taking control of your time and attention? That's what this book is about.
As creators of Google Ventures' renowned "design sprint," Jake and John have helped hundreds of teams solve important problems by changing how they work. Building on the success of these sprints and their experience designing ubiquitous tech products from Gmail to YouTube, they spent years experimenting with their own habits and routines, looking for ways to help people optimize their energy, focus, and time. Now they've packaged the most effective tactics into a four-step daily framework that anyone can use to systematically design their days. Make Time is not a one-size-fits-all formula. Instead, it offers a customizable menu of bite-size tips and strategies that can be tailored to individual habits and lifestyles.
Make Time isn't about productivity, or checking off more to-dos. Nor does it propose unrealistic solutions like throwing out your smartphone or swearing off social media. Making time isn't about radically overhauling your lifestyle; it's about making small shifts in your environment to liberate yourself from constant busyness and distraction.
A must-read for anyone who has ever thought, If only there were more hours in the day..., Make Time will help you stop passively reacting to the demands of the modern world and start intentionally making time for the things that matter.
Customer Reviews
Getting YOUR things done
David Allen’s Getting **THINGS** Done is the seminal essay on productivity and getting “everything” done. Make Time: How To Focus On What Matters Every Day is not about productivity per se. It is a book about getting **YOUR** things done - letting you to decide what is meaningful and concentrating on those tasks.
Unlike a typical productivity book, which will discuss systems to make sure you remember everything and that your tools are close at hand, Make Time focuses on “creating time”, or at least “switching time”. You want time to write a book, stop watching TV. You want to cook more interesting dinners, stop looking at your email 1000 times a day! Knapp and Zeratsky know this can be difficult. How can you live without distractions? Being distracted for a few minutes is one thing, but specific habits can distract you forever. There is always another post on Instagram or another video on YouTube. The book will show you how to rid yourself of these types of distractions, called Infinity pools.
The book is well-written and shows you how much time you waste on any day. The authors throw in lots of humour to keep things nice and light. Making Time reads less like a “How To” and more of a “Give One of These a Try”. Throughout, the authors mention what has worked for them individually, but more often than not, they disagree on the best approach. This works well to show the need to customize systems to your way of thinking. Conversely, the lack of any definitive systems can give the impression things were not thought through - that is not the case.
So much research has gone into this book. The authors dedicate an entire chapter to listing the “test” readers, and that may be the longest chapter in the book. While I appreciated the no one size fits all approach, with so much research and so many test readers I feel there is a lost opportunity here. Many people reading this book will want more direction. It would have been useful to include statistics. For example, stating that most people preferred this or that method. In cases were nearly every test reader ended up with a unique system, that would have given even more impact to the statement “Find what works for you”.
The book is a quick read and offers a very refreshing take on productivity in that it will encourage you to NOT do everything, but rather concentrate on the things that are important to you. From the perspective of your job, if you are self-employed, or work for an open-minded company such as Google, this book will be most helpful. Unfortunately, some backwards thinking, “Top-down” managers will want to tell you what your priorities are, and will not accept you saying no. This said the book will still be useful to help you plan your home life.
Great but….
Lots of stories and advice but I felt a little lost with all of it, so a few pages at the end that lists the tactics and key info would have been really helpful
Two mediocre tech bros write about productivity
The worst of both worlds: Silicon Valley and productivity gurus. This book is a compelling argument against mass literacy. Insufferable tech guys humble brag about their pointless achievements at Google and offer very little useful ideas. If you want to Make Time start by not reading this book and saving yourself a few hours.