Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day

by Jake Knapp

According to the Busy Bandwagon mindset, if you want to meet the demands of the modern workplace and function in modern society, you must fill every minute with productivity.

Infinity Pools are apps and other sources of endlessly replenishing content.

Refresh Facebook. Browse YouTube. Keep up on the nonstop breaking news, play Candy Crush, binge-watch HBO. These are the defaults behind the ravenous Infinity Pools, devouring every scrap of time the Busy Bandwagon leaves behind.

The ideas in this book can give you space in your calendar, in your brain, and in your days. That space can bring clarity and calm to everyday life. It can create opportunities to start new hobbies or get to that “someday” project.

Perfection is a distraction—another shiny object taking your attention away from your real priorities.

I was happiest when I had something I could hold on to in the present—a chunk of time that was bigger than a to-do but smaller than a five-year goal. An activity I could plan for, look forward to, and appreciate when it was done. In other words, I needed to make sure every day had a highlight.

Focusing on a daily Highlight stops the tug-of-war between Infinity Pool distractions and the demands of the Busy Bandwagon. It reveals a third path: being intentional and focused about how you spend your time.

What do I want to be the highlight of my day?

daily question

Urgency

step#1

The first strategy is all about urgency: What’s the most pressing thing I have to do today?

Satisfaction

step #2

The second Highlight strategy is to think about satisfaction: At the end of the day, which Highlight will bring me the most satisfaction?

Joy

step #3

The third strategy focuses on joy: When I reflect on today, what will bring me the most joy?

To other people, some of your joyful Highlights may look like wastes of time: sitting at home reading a book, meeting a friend to play Frisbee in the park, even doing a crossword puzzle. Not to us. You only waste time if you’re not intentional about how you spend it.

A good rule of thumb is to choose a Highlight that takes sixty to ninety minutes.

Saying no to an invitation or a new project can feel uncomfortable, and we’ve lost many hours, days, and weeks of Highlight time because we didn’t have the courage to decline a commitment up front.

we’re much happier when we default to no. What helped us make the switch was developing scripts for various situations so that we always know how to say no.

I used an approach recommended by Cal Newport in Deep Work: writing my schedule on a piece of blank paper, then replanning throughout the day as things change and evolve,

The people making this stuff love their work, and they can’t wait to bring the next futuristic thing to life.

They truly believe that their technology is improving the world.

Naturally, when people are passionate about what they’re doing,...

the sophisticated measurement and capacity for continuous improvement.

The best way to defeat distraction is to make it harder to react.

When your brain changes contexts—say, going from painting a picture to answering a text and then back to painting again—there’s a switching cost.

Contributing to the conversation on the Internet feels like an accomplishment, and our brains tell us, “We’ve done some work!” But 99 times out of 100, these contributions are insignificant. And they come at a cost—they take up time and energy you could be using on your Highlight.

We’re not asking you to give it all up. We simply suggest that you step over to the dark side by becoming a fair-weather fan. Watch games only on special occasions, like when your team is in the playoffs. Stop reading the news when they’re losing. You can still love your team yet spend your time on something else.

wow! Can I do this? Sure.

We used to think an empty email inbox was the hallmark of high productivity.

Every time you check your email or another message service, you’re basically saying, “Does any random person need my time right now?” And if you respond right away, you’re sending another signal both to them and to yourself: “I’ll stop what I’m doing to put other people’s priorities ahead of mine no matter who they are or what they want.”

You take too much damn time.

When the month is up, think about everything you did with that extra time and decide how much of it you want to give back to your TV.

Shifting your focus to something that your mind perceives as a doable, completable task will create a real increase in positive energy, direction, and motivation.

First, a cue prompts your brain to start the loop. The cue triggers you to perform a routine behavior without thinking, on autopilot. Finally, you get a reward: some result that makes your brain feel good and encourages it to run the same routine again the next time you encounter the cue.

if you go all in and embrace the current task with wild abandon, you may find it becomes easier to focus.

If you want energy for your brain, you need to take care of your body.

He’ll eat an early dinner, then skip breakfast and have a big lunch as his next meal.

Ryan says that for him, maximizing energy started with understanding a bit about how caffeine works. To the brain, caffeine molecules look a lot like a molecule called adenosine, whose job is to tell the brain to slow down and feel sleepy or groggy. Adenosine is helpful in the evening as you get ready for bed. But when adenosine makes us sleepy in the morning or afternoon, we usually reach for caffeine. When caffeine shows up, the brain says, “Hey good-lookin’!” and the caffeine binds to the receptors where the adenosine is supposed to go. The adenosine is left to just float around, and as a result, the brain doesn’t get the sleepy signal. What’s interesting in this (at least to us) is that caffeine doesn’t technically give you an energy boost; instead, it blocks you from having an energy dip caused by adenosine-induced sleepiness. But once the caffeine wears off, all that adenosine is still hanging around, ready to pounce. If you don’t recaffeinate, you crash. And over time, your body adjusts to more and more caffeine by producing more and more adenosine to compensate. This is why, if you normally drink lots of caffeine, you probably feel extra groggy and headachy when you don’t have it. Knowing all this, Ryan devised a perfect system that allowed him to enjoy as much coffee as possible, maintain steady energy, and not fry his nerves or disrupt his sleep. In the end, his personalized formula, backed by science and proven by experience, was crazy simple: Wake up without ca...

Meditation is just a breather for your brain.

Meditation is also exercise for your brain.

Your music, podcast, or audiobook prevents boredom, but boredom creates space for thinking and focus (#57).

It’s a cruel irony of modern life that we’re surrounded by people yet more isolated than ever.

So true

People with strong relationships are more likely to live long, healthy, fulfilling lives.

Photocopy it or go to maketimebook.com for a printable PDF and a variety of paper and