Making time for what matters | Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky (authors of Sprint and Make Time, co-founders of Character Capital)
Jake Knapp and John Zerotsky, authors of *Sprint* and *Make Time*, discuss their 'Make Time' framework. They share practical advice for combating distractions and the 'busy bandwagon' by focusing on a daily 'highlight' and intentionally designing one's day.
Deep Dive Analysis
18 Topic Outline
Introduction to Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky
The Core Philosophy of 'Make Time'
Recording the 'Make Time' Audiobook Experience
Common Misconceptions About Productivity
Understanding the Busy Bandwagon and Infinity Pools
Personal Productivity Challenges and Ongoing Battle
Overview of the Four-Part 'Make Time' Framework
Defining and Choosing Your Daily Highlight
Designing Your Day with the Calendar
The 'Groundhog Day' Mentality for Productivity
Prioritizing Joy: A Personal Highlight Example
Tactics for Laser Focus and Avoiding Distractions
Creating a Distraction-Free Phone Environment
Managing Email and Resetting Expectations
Boosting Energy for Better Focus
Reflecting and Iterating on Your Daily Experiments
Introduction to the Design Sprint Framework
The Value of Design Sprints for Startups
7 Key Concepts
Traditional Productivity Advice
This approach typically focuses on getting better and faster at tasks already in front of you, such as clearing your inbox or attending meetings, emphasizing efficiency rather than intentionality about what truly matters.
Busy Bandwagon
This refers to the societal expectation and internal feeling that one *should* always be busy, often driven by observing or perceiving others' busyness, which can lead to stress and a default reactive mode.
Infinity Pools
These are endlessly replenishing sources of content or tasks, such as social media feeds, email inboxes, or streaming services, that are designed to be compelling and friction-free, making it easy to get continuously drawn in and lose focus.
Make Time Framework
A four-part system (Highlight, Laser, Energize, Reflect) for intentional time management. It involves choosing one important 'highlight' each day, using tactics to 'laser' focus, ensuring sufficient 'energize' levels, and 'reflecting' on what worked to iterate and improve.
Highlight (Make Time)
The single most important thing an individual wants to accomplish or experience in their day, chosen in the morning, which serves as the anchor for everything else. It typically requires a 60-90 minute focused block of time.
Attention Residue
The lingering static or discomfort in your mind that results from switching between tasks or being exposed to potential distractions, which can undercut your ability to fully focus on the current task.
Design Sprint
A five-day, structured process that takes a team from a problem or idea to a prototyped solution and then tests that prototype with real users. It was developed to help teams rapidly validate ideas and find product-market fit.
14 Questions Answered
Most people focus on getting better and faster at doing the things already in front of them, like messages and meetings, rather than changing defaults to prioritize what's truly important to them.
Infinity pools are endlessly replenishing sources of content or tasks, like social media or email, designed to be compelling and friction-free, making it easy to get sucked in and lose focus on important work.
They admit it's an ongoing challenge and a constant battle to resist the 'busy bandwagon' and infinity pools, often giving themselves a B or B- grade, but the framework provides a path back when things get off track.
You can choose a highlight based on urgency (what absolutely must get done), satisfaction (what will feel good to complete), or joy (what will bring you happiness), trusting your gut on what feels most important for that specific day.
Instead of letting the calendar dictate your schedule, use it as a canvas to proactively design how you want to spend your time, blocking out focus time for your highlight and other important activities.
It's the idea that if you don't achieve your highlight or goal one day, it's okay to try again the next day, treating each day as a new experiment rather than dwelling on past failures.
Tactics include deleting 'infinity pool' apps (social media, news, streaming), logging out of accounts, using 2-factor authentication as a speed bump, or having a separate device for work-related social media.
Reset expectations with colleagues (e.g., via email signature or auto-responder stating you check email less frequently) and slow down your inbox by checking it only once or twice a day, which reduces the overall volume of responses.
Willpower alone is rarely enough to resist the pull of highly engineered, friction-free 'infinity pools'; instead, creating intentional barriers and friction between yourself and distractions is more effective.
Energize focuses on ensuring your brain and body are well-supported through adequate sleep, good nutrition, and exercise, as these are crucial for maintaining attention and focus.
Sleep is highlighted as the single most important factor for energy and focus, emphasizing the need to construct an environment that allows for quality rest.
Reflect involves looking back on your day as an experiment, noting whether your highlight happened and what helped or hindered it, fostering curiosity rather than self-judgment to adjust tactics for the future.
A Design Sprint is a five-day, structured process that takes a team from an idea or problem to a prototype and then tests that prototype with real users, allowing for rapid validation and learning.
Design Sprints are especially valuable for startups needing to quickly find or expand product-market fit, particularly those facing significant behavioral risks where customers need to adopt new ways of interacting with technology (e.g., AI products).
20 Actionable Insights
1. Choose a Daily Highlight
Start each day by deciding what you want the highlight of your day to be, imagining what you’d say if asked at the end of the day. This anchors your focus and helps you feel good about how you spend your energy, even if other things are messy.
2. Write Down Your Highlight
Don’t just think about your daily highlight; write it down on a sticky note and place it somewhere visible. This simple act creates a special commitment and a natural reflection loop at the end of the day.
3. Design Your Day with Calendar
Use your calendar as a canvas to proactively design how you want to spend your time, rather than letting it dictate your schedule. Block out time for your highlight and other important activities to protect your focus.
4. Delete Distracting Apps
Remove infinity pool apps (e.g., Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, news apps) from your phone to eliminate constant low-friction dopamine hits and reduce attention residue. This creates relief and allows you to focus on meaningful activities.
5. Log Out of Social Media/Email
Stay logged out of distracting websites like Twitter and LinkedIn on your computer, only logging in for specific, intentional purposes. This adds a speed bump, breaking the automatic habit of checking feeds.
6. Use 2FA as a Speed Bump
Enable two-factor authentication (2FA) for frequently checked online services, not just for security, but to add an extra step of friction. This deliberate barrier can help prevent mindless engagement with infinity pools.
7. Reset Email Expectations
Communicate to colleagues and contacts that you will be slower to respond to emails, perhaps by adding a line in your email signature or an auto-responder. This manages external expectations and, more importantly, reduces internal pressure and guilt to be constantly responsive.
8. Slow Down Your Inbox
Intentionally check your email less frequently (e.g., once or twice a day) and avoid the pressure of maintaining an empty inbox. This slows down the entire communication loop, reducing the volume of incoming messages and your reactive burden.
9. Remove Phone from Bedroom
Keep your phone out of the bedroom, ideally charging it on a different floor or in a separate room. This helps ensure your last activity before sleep and first activity upon waking are not phone-related, improving sleep quality and morning focus.
10. Create a ‘No-TV’ Living Space
Avoid having a TV as the default entertainment in your main living areas. Instead, use a projector or place the TV in a less accessible room, requiring a deliberate decision and setup to watch something.
11. Use a Separate Device for Distractions
If certain apps are necessary for work but highly distracting, consider using a separate device (e.g., a work iPad) for those specific apps. This creates a clear boundary between focused work/personal time and reactive tasks.
12. Cancel Internet Access (Temporarily)
For deep focus, work in a location without internet access or use a timer to physically shut off your home internet. This extreme measure eliminates the temptation of online distractions, making focused work the only option.
13. Prioritize Sleep for Energy
Recognize sleep as the single most important factor for maintaining energy and focus throughout the day. Construct an environment and routine that prioritizes consistent, quality sleep.
14. Schedule Exercise with Accountability
Integrate exercise into your routine with external accountability, such as a personal trainer or a dedicated app. This ensures consistent physical activity, which is a significant source of mental and physical energy.
15. Practice Daily Reflection
At the end of each day, reflect on what happened, treating the day as an experiment rather than a judgment of success or failure. This fosters curiosity about what worked or didn’t, allowing for continuous adjustment and improvement.
16. Keep a Gratitude Journal
Write down one to three things you are grateful for each day, ideally before bed. This practice trains your brain to notice positive experiences, enhancing overall well-being and satisfaction with your day.
17. Embrace Groundhog Day Mentality
Adopt the mindset that if you don’t achieve your highlight or desired outcome one day, it’s okay because you’ll have another chance tomorrow. This reduces self-judgment and encourages continuous experimentation and improvement.
18. Use Feed Blockers for Work Tools
Install browser extensions that disable feeds in work-related social platforms like LinkedIn. This allows you to use the essential functions of the tool (e.g., search) without getting pulled into endless scrolling.
19. Read Weekly News Digests
Instead of consuming news constantly, rely on weekly news digests from reputable sources. This allows important stories to be distilled and summarized, reducing the feeling of needing to stay ‘on top’ of every breaking event.
20. Shift Team Communication to Documents
Encourage your team to shift main communications to document-based platforms like Notion, rather than instant messaging or email. This changes expectations around response times and fosters more thoughtful, less reactive interactions.
3 Key Quotes
It's not really about productivity. It's not about time management. It's really just about, look, in any given day, we're lucky if we can have one great moment where we have our peak attention and we use it well.
Jake Knapp
It's a constant battle between the Jake and the busy bandwagon and my inner feeling of like, how, how can I live up to people's expectations of me and respond in the way that I should and react in the way that I should. And then how can I do the project A stuff, the big important stuff.
Jake Knapp
What's really going to be the highlight of my day? What's really going to be the highlight? The thing that I might actually remember in the future.
Jake Knapp
6 Protocols
Create a Distraction-Free Phone
John Zeratsky- Delete social media apps (e.g., Instagram, Facebook) from your phone.
- Avoid installing apps like Twitter/X or LinkedIn on your phone; use the mobile website if necessary.
- Stay logged out of social media sites on your computer, requiring a deliberate login for specific purposes.
- For necessary work-related social media (e.g., LinkedIn), use a browser extension to disable the feed.
- Consider using 2-factor authentication for accounts to add an extra 'speed bump' before logging in.
Reduce TV Distraction
John Zeratsky & Jake Knapp- Avoid having a TV in your main living space.
- If you have a TV, place it in a separate room or use a projector setup that requires deliberate effort to set up and use.
Keep Phone Out of Bedroom
Jake Knapp- Do not bring your phone into the bedroom.
- Charge your phone in a different room, ideally on a different floor, to create physical distance and friction.
- Consider using an eye mask to improve sleep quality.
Manage Email Expectations
Jake Knapp- Add a signature to your email that states you are checking email less frequently (e.g., 'I'm checking email two times a day as an experiment to improve my focus').
- Optionally, include an escalation path (e.g., 'You can text me if it's urgent').
- Consider using an out-of-office auto-responder to communicate slower response times due to focus on important projects.
- Consciously check email only once or twice a day, or less frequently, and do not hold yourself accountable to an empty inbox.
Cancel Home Internet (or create equivalent friction)
Jake Knapp- Cancel internet service at your home office or a specific workspace.
- Alternatively, use a physical timer to automatically switch off your internet router at certain hours.
- Use software to selectively disable internet access during focus times.
- Work in locations without Wi-Fi, such as a park or coffee shop where you don't ask for the password.
Daily Reflection
Jake Knapp- At the end of the day, look at your written highlight from the morning.
- Assess whether the highlight happened or not.
- Consider what helped you achieve it or what made it difficult.
- Optionally, keep a gratitude journal by your bed and write down one to three things you are grateful for from the day.