Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day

by Jake Knapp

A couple of years earlier, while working at a fast-paced tech startup, I became obsessed with making the most of every hour. My work was neatly planned and organized; I processed and cleared my inbox every day; I even carried a stack of notecards in my pocket so I could capture any spontaneous thoughts or ideas. Not a single moment of thinking time was to be wasted! That worked well enough at the office, so I wondered: Could these kinds of productivity hacks help me make the most of my time at home, too? I began to see my life as a problem to be solved with categorized to-do lists, a rigid calendar, and an absurd filing system. It didn’t work. I was so focused on small tasks that the days slipped by even faster than before. The blur was getting worse. It sucked. I decided to overhaul my approach. Instead of obsessively managing my minutes, I turned my attention to the long term. I created lists of one-year, three-year, five-year, and ten-year goals, which I asked my girlfriend to review and discuss with me. (The next year she married me, so I guess she was on the same page with at least one of my goals.) Setting goals seemed more meaningful than optimizing my to-do list, but I still felt adrift—these objectives were too far away to be motivating. And there were other problems: What if my priorities changed? All of a sudden I’d realize I was working toward a goal that no longer mattered to me. And living a “someday” life was demoralizing. In the words of author James Clear,...