By Manuel “Bobby” Orig, Director, ApoAgua

Do you ever look back and wonder, What did I do today?

We all struggle to make time for what matters. We start each day with the best intentions – but then the hours get swallowed up by back-to-back meetings, nonstop email chains, and the infinite stream of social media updates. Sometimes it feels like frizzled and distracted has become our default state.

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. Instead, Make Time offers a customizable menu of bite-size tactics.

A must-read for anyone who has ever wished for more hours in the day, Make Time will help you start intentionally designing your life around things that really matter. Moment by moment and day by day, you can make your life your own.

Praise for the book

Too often we get bogged down in the demands of each day and struggle to find time for what really matters. In this powerful book, Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky explain how small changes in the design of our days can give us more time for the people and activities that energize and fulfill us. Essential reading for anyone who wants to create a happier, more successful life.
– GRETCHEN RUBIN, bestselling author of  The Happiness Project

Time is the single biggest ingredient for creative work. Time to focus, time to experiment, time to master creative skills. Make Time provides ways for each of us to find new reserves of that precious commodity. It is an excellent guidebook for taking control of the design of your life.
– TIM BROWN, CEO of IDEO and author of Change by Design

About the authors

JAKE  KNAPP and JOHN ZERATSKY are obsessed with the idea of redesigning time. They’re the authors of the New York Times bestseller Sprint and the creators of Time Dorks, a popular newsletter about experiments in time management.

JAKE spent ten years at Google and Google Ventures, where he created the design sprint process. He has since run more than 150 sprints with companies including Nest, Slack, and Flatiron Health.

JOHN has written for the Wall Street Journal, Time, Harvard Business Review, and many more publications. For nearly fifteen years, he was a designer at technology companies, including YouTube and Google Ventures.

INTRODUCTION

This is a book about slowing down the crazy rush. It’s about making time for things that matter. The authors believe it’s possible to feel less busy, be less distracted, and enjoy the present moment more.

Make Time is not about productivity. It’s not about getting more things done, finishing your to-dos faster, or outsourcing your life. Instead, it’s a framework designed to help you actually create more time in your day for the things you care about, like spending time with your family, learning a language, and volunteering. Whatever you want time for, the authors believe Make Time can help you get it. Moment by moment and day by day, you can make your life your own.

BUSY BANDWAGON and INFINITY POOLS

Two very powerful forces compete for every minute of your time.

The first is what the authors call the Busy Bandwagon. The Busy Bandwagon is our culture of constant busyness – the overflowing inboxes, stuffed calendars, and endless to-do lists.

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.

The second force competing for your time is what the authors call the Infinity Pools. Infinity pools are apps and other sources of endlessly replenishing content. If you can pool to refresh, it’s an Infinity Pool. If it streams, it’s an Infinity Pool.

This always-available, always-new entertainment is your reward for the exhaustion of constant busyness.

But is constant busyness really mandatory? Is endless distraction really a reward?  Or are we just stuck on autopilot?

MOST OF OUR TIME IS SPENT BY DEFAULT

Both forces – the Busy Bandwagon and the Infinity Pools – are powerful because they’ve become our defaults. In technology lingo, default means a pre-selected option, and if you don’t do something to change it, that default is what you get.

For example, if you buy a new phone, by default you get email and Web browser apps on the homescreen. By default, you get a notification for every message. All these options have been preselected by Apple or Google or whoever made your phone. You can change the settings if you want to, but it takes work, so many defaults just stick.

There are defaults in nearly every part of our lives. It’s not just our devices; our workplaces and our culture have built-in defaults that make busy and distracted normal, typical state of affairs. These standard settings are everywhere.

In the office, every meeting defaults to thirty or sixty minutes even if the business at hand actually requires only a quick chat. By default other people choose what goes on our calendars, and by default we’re expected to be okay with back-to-back meetings. The rest of our work defaults to email and messaging systems, and by default we check our inboxes constantly and reply-all immediately.

React to what’s in front of you. Be responsive. Fill your time, be efficient, and get more done. These are the default rules of the Busy Bandwagon.

When we tear ourselves away from the Busy Bandwagon, the Infinity Pools are ready to lure us in. While the Busy Bandwagon defaults to endless tasks, the Infinity Pools defaults to endless distraction. Our phones, laptops, and TVs are filled with games, social feeds and videos. Everything is at our fingertips, irresistible, even addictive.

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

There you are in the middle, pulled in opposite directions by the Busy Bandwagon and Infinity Pools.

TAKE BACK CONTROL OF YOUR TIME

But there is a way to free your attention from those competing distractions and take back control of your time. That’s where Make Time comes in.

Make Time is a framework for choosing what you want to focus on, building the energy to do it, and breaking the default cycle so that you can start being more intentional about the way you live your life. Even if you don’t completely control your own schedule – and few of us do – you absolutely can control your attention.

The authors want to help you set your own defaults. With new habits and new mindsets, you can stop reacting to the modern world and start actively making time for the people and the activities that matter to you. This isn’t about saving time. It’s about making time for what matters.

The authors realized they could apply design to something invisible: how we spent our time.  But instead of starting with technology or business opportunity, they started with the most meaningful projects and the most important people in their lives.

Each day, the authors tried to make a little time for their own personal top priority. They questioned the defaults of the Busy Bandwagon and re-designed their to-do lists and calendars. They questioned the defaults of the Infinity Pools and redesigned how and when they use technology. They don’t have limitless willpower, so every design had to be easy to use. They could not erase every obligation, so they worked with constraints. They experimented, failed, and succeeded, and, over time, they learned.

The authors share the principles and tactics they have discovered for making time.

FOUR LESSONS FROM THE DESIGN SPRINT LABORATORY

While working at Google, Jake created something he called a “design sprint”: basically a workweek redesigned from the ground up. For five days, a team would cancel all meetings and focus on solving a single problem, following a specific checklist of activities. It was their first effort at designing time rather than products, and it worked – the design sprint quickly spread across Google.

In 2012, the authors started working together in the Google Ventures portfolio. Over the next few years, they run more than 150 of these five-day sprints. Nearly a thousand people participated: programmers, CEOs, nutritionists, baristas and more.

The authors call themselves Time Dorks. For a couple of time dorks, the whole thing was an amazing opportunity. They had the chance to redesign the workweek and learned from hundreds of high-performing teams. Many of the principles behind Make Time were inspired by what they discovered in those sprints.

1. The first thing the authors learned is, something magical happens when you start the day with one high-priority goal. Each sprint day, they drew attention to one big focal point: On Monday, the team creates a map of the problem; on Tuesday, they decide which solutions are best, on Thursday, they build a prototype; and on Friday, they test it. Each day’s goal is ambitious, but it’s just one thing.
   
   The focal point creates clarity and motivation. When you have one ambitious but achievable goal, at the end of the day, you’re done. You can check it off, let go of work, and go home satisfied.
   
2. Another lesson from the design sprints was that the teams got more done when they banned devices. Since they set the rules, they were able to prohibit laptops and smartphones, and the difference was phenomenal. Without the constant lure of email and other Infinity Pools, people brought their complete attention to the task at hand, and the defaults switched to focus.
   
3. They also learned about the importance of energy for focused work and clear thinking. When they first started running design sprints, teams worked long hours. Late in the week, energy would plummet. So they made adjustments, and saw how things like a healthy lunch, a quick walk, frequent breaks, and a slightly shorter workday helped maintain peak energy, resulting in better and more effective work.
   
4. Lastly, these experiments taught the authors the power of experiments. Experimenting allowed them to improve the process, and seeing the results of their changes firsthand gave them a deep confidence that they could have never built by reading about someone else’s results.

These sprints required a whole team and a whole week, but they could see right away that there was no reason individuals could not redesign their days in a similar way. The lessons the authors learned became the foundation for Make Time.

HOW MAKE TIME WORKS

MAKE TIME IS JUST FOUR STEPS REPEATED EVERY DAY

The four daily steps of Make Time are inspired by what the authors learned from design sprints, from their own experiments, and from their readers who have tried out their framework and shared their results.

Here’s a view of how each day looks:

1. The first step is choosing a single highlight to prioritize in your day.
   
2. Next, you’ll employ specific tactics to stay laser-focused on the highlight.
   
3. Throughout the day, you’ll build energy so that you can stay in control of your time and attention.
   
4. Finally, you’ll reflect on the day with a few simple notes.

Let’s zoom in for a closer look at these four steps.

HIGHLIGHT: START EACH DAY BY CHOOSING A FOCAL POINT

The first step is deciding what you want to make time for. Every day, you’ll choose a single activity to prioritize and protect in your calendar.

It might be an important goal at work, like finishing a presentation. You might choose something at home, like cooking dinner or planting your garden. By setting “finish presentation” as your Highlight, you commit to complete all tasks required.

Of course, your Highlight isn’t the only thing you’ll do each day. But it will be your priority. Asking yourself “What’s going to be the highlight of my day?” ensures that you spend time on the things that matter to you and don’t lose the entire day reacting to other people’s priorities. When you choose a Highlight, you put yourself in a positive, proactive frame of mind.

LASER: BEAT DISTRACTION TO MAKE TIME FOR YOUR HIGHLIGHT

Distractions like email, social media, and breaking news are everywhere, and they’re not going away. You can’t go live in a cave, throw away your gadgets, and swear off technology entirely. But you can redesign the way you use technology to stop the reaction cycle.

You can adjust technology so you can find laser mode. Simple changes like logging out of social media apps or scheduling time to check email can have a huge effect.

ENERGIZE: USE THE BODY TO ENERGIZE THE BRAIN

To achieve focus and make time for what matters, your brain needs energy, and that energy comes from taking care of your body.

That’s why the third component of Make Time is to charge your battery with exercise, food, sleep, quiet, and face-to-face time.

REFLECT: ADJUST AND IMPROVE YOUR SYSTEM

Finally, before going to bed you’ll take a few notes. It’s super simple: You’ll decide which tactics you want to continue and which ones you want to refine or drop. And you’ll think back on your energy level, whether you made time for your Highlight, and what brought you joy in the day.

Over time, you’ll build a customized daily system tailored to your unique habits and routines, your unique brain and body, and your unique goals and priorities.

HIGHLIGHT

If you want to make time for things that matter, the Busy Bandwagon will tell you the answer is to do more. Get more done. Be more efficient. Set more goals and make more plans.

The authors disagree. Doing more doesn’t help you create time for what matters; it just makes you feel even more frazzled and busy. And when you’re busy day after day, time slides in a blur.

The authors believe that focusing on in-between activities – in the space between goals and tasks – is the key to slowing down, bringing satisfaction to your daily life, and helping you make time.

Long-term goals are useful for orienting you in the right direction but make it hard to enjoy the time spent working along the way.

And tasks are necessary to get things done, but without a focal point, they fly by in a forgettable haze.

Plenty of self-help gurus have offered suggestions for setting goals and plenty of productivity experts have created systems for getting things done, but the space between has been neglected. The authors call this missing piece a Highlight.

WHAT WILL BE THE HIGHLIGHT OF YOUR DAY?

The authors want you to begin each day by thinking about what you hope will be the bright spot. If at the end of the day, someone asks you, “What was the highlight of your day?” what do you want your answer to be. When you look back on your day, what activity of accomplishment or moment do you want to savor? That’s your Highlight.

Of course, your Highlight is not the only thing you’ll do each day. After all, most of us can’t ignore our inboxes or say no to our bosses. But choosing a Highlight gives you a chance to be proactive. Although your Busy Bandwagon says you should try to be as productive as possible each day, we know it’s better to focus on your priorities even if that means you don’t get to everything in your to-do list.

Your Highlight gives each day a focal point. Research show that the way you experience your day is not determined primarily by what happens to you. In fact, you create your own reality by what you pay attention to.

You  can design your time by choosing where you direct your attention. And your daily Highlight is the target of your attention.

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.

LASER

Okay, you’ve chosen a Highlight for the day and you’ve made time for it in your busy schedule. Now the time has arrived and you need to focus. And, of course, this is the hard part.

When you’re in a Laser mode, your attention is focused on the present like a laser beam shining on your target. You’re in the flow, fully engaged and immersed in the moment. When you’re laser-focused on your Highlight, it feels fantastic – it’s the payoff for proactively choosing what’s important to you.

When you’re doing something you care about and have energy to focus, Laser mode simply appears.

In this world, willpower alone is not enough to protect your focus. You need to redesign the way you use technology to regain control.

WHY INFINITY POOLS ARE SO HARD TO RESIST

First, there’s passion for technology. Multiply that passion by tens of thousands of tech workers, and you get an idea of how the technology industry constantly churns out faster, more sophisticated gadgets and technologies.

We love technology. But there is a very serious problem here. Combine the four-plus hours the average person spends on their smartphone with the four-plus hours the average person spends watching TV, and distraction is a full-time job. Here’s where the authors point out the obvious: Tech companies make money when you use their products. They won’t offer you small doses voluntarily, they’ll offer you everything. And if these Infinity Pools are hard to resist today, they’ll be harder to resist tomorrow.

By default, we don’t just get the best of modern technology. We get all of it, all the time. We get futuristic superpowers and addictive distraction, together, on every screen. The better the technology gets, the cooler our superpowers become – and the more of our time and attention the machines will steal.

CREATE BARRIERS TO DISTRACTION

When you immerse yourself in Laser mode rather than ping-ponging between distraction and attention, you not only make time for what matters most, you make higher quality time.

Every distraction imposes a cost on the depth of your focus.

The benefits of Laser mode are not just about you and your Highlight. Part of the reason we’re all hooked up on distractions is that everybody else is, too. It’s the fear of missing out – FOMO – and we’ve all got it. How will we make small talk if we haven’t seen the latest HBO series, or studied the cool features of the brand-new iPhone? Everybody else is doing it, and we don’t want to get left behind.

The authors want to encourage you to look at this a bit differently: As an opportunity to stand out, but in a good way. If you change your priorities, people will notice. Your actions show others what’s important to you.

BE THE BOSS OF YOUR PHONE

Removing email and other Infinity Pool apps from the authors’ phones might be the simplest, most powerful change they’ve made to reclaim time and attention. Both of them have distraction-free phones since 2012, and not only have they  survived, they’ve thrived – becoming more effective in their work and just generally enjoying their days more.

Of course, a distraction-free phone isn’t for everyone. To some, the idea of a smartphone without social media, Web browsers, and email sounds nuts. Maybe you don’t constantly feel an overpowering urge to pull your phone out of your pocket. Maybe you’re firmly in control of your email and newsfeeds rather than the other way around.

All the same, the authors believe everybody’s paying some cognitive cost for the constantly updating information at our fingertips. Maybe you don’t have a blatant distraction problem, but there’s a good chance your phone’s defaults could be more conducive to focus. So even if you are already in control of your phone, the authors encourage you to try going distraction-free for a short experiment. It might not stick, but it will give you a chance to reconsider your defaults.

Here, in a nutshell is how to set up your own distraction-free phone:

1. Delete social apps
   First, delete Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and so on. Don’t worry. If you change your mind later, it is very easy to install these apps again.
   
2. Delete other Infinity Pools
   Anything with an infinite supply of interesting content should be deleted. This includes games, news apps, and streaming video like YouTube. If you refresh it obsessively and/or lose hours without meaning to, get rid of it.
   
3. Delete email and remove your account.
   Email is both an alluring Infinity Pool and the beating heart of the Busy Bandwagon. And because it can be difficult to prepare proper replies to email on the  phone, it’s often anxiety-provoking as well. Remove email from your phone and you’ll remove a lot of stress along with it.
   
4. Remove the web browser.
   Finally, you need to disable the Swiss Army knife of distraction: the Web browser.
   
5. Keep everything else.
   

There are still lots of amazing apps that are not Infinity Pools: ones that make our lives unquestionably more convenient without sucking us into a vortex of distraction.

Maps, for example, have an infinite amount of content, but few people are tempted to browse maps of random cities. Even apps such as Spotify and Apple Music are relatively harmless. Sure, there is an infinite number of songs and podcast out there, but you’re unlikely to be overwhelmed by the urge to surf everything.

Of course, there will be times when you sincerely have to use your email or a browser, and when that happens, you can temporarily enable the apps you need for the task at hand. The key thing here is that you’re using your phone intentionally – it’s not using you. And when you’re done, you set the default back to “off.”

The most important reward of a distraction-free phone is reclaiming control. Once you control the defaults, you’re the boss. And that’s how it should be.

SLOW YOUR INBOX

The authors used to think that an empty email was the hallmark of high productivity. For years, they made it a daily goal to process every single message they received.

The empty inbox technique is based on good logic. Out of inbox, out of mind. And the technique works well if you get only a few emails per day. But like most office workers, the authors got a whole lot more than a few messages per day. They were supposed to be clearing it out of the way so that they could do their work, but instead, on most days email was the work. It was a vicious cycle: The faster they replied, the more replies they got back and the more they strengthened the expectation of immediate responses.

As the authors started to make time for daily Highlights, they realized they had to stop this frenetic email processing. So for the last several years, they’ve been putting the brakes on their inboxes. It’s not easy. But if you want to get into Laser mode and finish your Highlight, you have to fight to slow down your inboxes.

The rewards go beyond Laser mode. If you check email less often, research suggests that you’ll be less stressed and just on top of things. A 2014 study by the University of British Columbia found that when people checked their email just three times a day (instead of as often as they wanted), they reported remarkable lower stress.

DEAL WITH EMAIL AT THE END OF THE DAY

Instead of checking your email first thing in the morning and then getting sucked in and reacting to other people’s priorities, deal with email at the end of the day. That way you can use your prime hours for your Highlight and other important work. You’ll probably have a little less energy at the end of the day, but that is actually a good thing when it comes to email: You’ll be less tempted to overcommit by saying yes to every incoming request and less likely to bank out a multipage reply when a simple reply would do.

ENERGIZE

So far, we’ve talked about ways to Make Time by choosing where to focus your effort, adjusting your calendar and devices, and blocking out distractions to boost our attention. But there’s another, more basic way to make time. If you can increase your energy every day, you’ll turn moments that might otherwise be lost to mental and physical fatigue into usable time for your Highlights.

YOU ARE MORE THAN A BRAIN

Imagine you’ve got a battery inside you. All energy is stored in the battery, and just like the battery in your phone or laptop, it can be charged all the way up to 100 percent or drain all the way down to zero.

When your battery is empty, you’re totally exhausted – you feel wrung out and maybe even depressed. This is when you’re most likely to get distracted by Infinity Pools such as Facebook and email. Then you feel worse because you’re tired and you’re annoyed at yourself for wasting time. It sucks.

Now imagine how it feels when your battery is full. You’ve got a spring in your step. You feel well rested, your mind is sharp, and your body feels alive and alert. You’re ready to take on any project – not only ready but excited. Can you visualize the feeling? Pretty nice, right? That’s 100 percent.

Choosing a Highlight and getting into Laser more are the core of Make Time. But the secret sauce is Energize.

The authors thesis is simple: If you have energy, it’s easier to maintain your focus and priorities and avoid reacting to distractions and demands. With a full battery, you have the power to be present, think clearly, and spend your time on what matters, not default to what’s right in front of you.

REFLECT

Welcome to the fourth  final step of Make Time. In “Reflect,” you’ll use a little science to tailor the system to you: your habits, your lifestyle, and your preferences.

FINE TUNE YOUR DAYS WITH THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD

Don’t worry, science is simple. Sure, some of it can be a little tricky. But the scientific method itself is straightforward:

1. OBSERVE what’s going on.
   
2. GUESS why things are happening the way they are.
   
3. EXPERIMENT to test your hypothesis.
   
4. MEASURE  the results and decide whether you were right.
   

You might boil down Make Time down to three hypothesis:

The Highlight hypothesis
If you set a single intention at the start of each day, the authors predict you’ll be more satisfied, joyful, and effective.

The Laser hypothesis
If you create barriers around the Busy Bandwagon and the Infinity Pools, the authors predict you’ll focus your attention like a laser beam.

The Energize hypothesis
If you live a little more like a prehistoric human, the authors predict you’ll enhance your mental and physical energy.

The tactics outlined here are for testing these hypotheses.  But only you can test them on you. And for that you need the scientific method. You need to measure the data in your own everyday life.

You are a sample size of one, and your results are the only results that really matter. This kind of everyday science is what “Reflect” is all about.

TAKE NOTES TO TRACK RESULTS AND KEEP YOU HONEST

Collecting the data is super easy. Every day you’ll reflect on whether you made time for your Highlight and how well you were able to focus on it. You’ll note how much energy you had. You’ll review the tactics you used, jot down some observations on what worked and what didn’t, and make a plan for your tactics tomorrow.

This step takes only a few moments; you just answer these simple questions:

Today’s Highlight: Did I make time for it?

Today’s Focus (Laser): Did I make time for it?

Today’s Energy: Did I make time for it?

Tactics tried today: How did it go?

Tactics to try (or try again) tomorrow.

Moment I’m grateful for.

All of the above are designed to help you keep track of how you use Make Time. But it’s also designed to help you learn about you.

After a few days of taking notes, you’ll find yourself more aware of your energy and attention throughout the day and more in control of where you direct it.

As you experiment with the system, it’s important to remember that some tactics will work right away but some will require patience and perseverance. Sometimes it takes trial-and-error to make a tactic fit in your life (Should I ride a stationary bike? Before work, at lunch or in the evening?). If you fail at first, don’t be hard on yourself. Give it time and use the notes to track and tweak your approach.

This isn’t about building up to doing all the tactics all the time or even doing some of the tactics all the time. You’ll have off days and off weeks, and that’s fine. You can restart your experiments at any time, and you can do as much or as little as fits in your life.

BE GRATEFUL

The main purpose of these notes is to measure the results of your experiments, but you’ll notice that the authors included a note about gratitude. Gratitude rituals have been showing up in different cultures for thousands of years. For example, they’re central to Buddhism, they’re in the Bible, they’re part of Japanese tea ceremonies, and Americans celebrate a Thanksgiving Day. But regardless of its illustrious history, the authors is including gratitude for a very simple reason: They want to bias the results of your experiments.

Changing defaults isn’t easy, so it’s helpful to look back on the day through a grateful lens. Quiet often you’ll find them even if lots of things didn’t go your way, your hard work of making time still paid off with a moment to be grateful for. When that happens, the feeling of gratitude becomes a powerful incentive to do the steps again tomorrow.

SMALL SHIFTS CREATE BIG RESULTS

At the outset, the authors claimed it was possible to slow down the rush of modern life, feel less busy, and enjoy your days more. Now that we’ve gone through all four steps, it’s time to take another look at those claims. Can you really make time every day?

The authors admit they don’t have a magic reset button for your life. If you have to answer five hundred emails today, you probably can’t get away with answering zero tomorrow. If your schedule was packed this week, it will probably be packed next week, too. They can’t erase your calendar or freeze your inbox.

But such radical change aren’t necessary. There’s an invisible premise behind Make Time: You’re already close. Small shifts can put you in control. If you reduce a few distractions, increase your physical and mental energy just a bit, and focus your attention on one bright spot, a blah day can become extraordinary. It doesn’t require an empty calendar – just sixty to ninety minutes of attention on something special.

The goal is to make time for what matters, find more balance, and enjoy today a little more.

/// end

University of Experience is a special Aboitiz Eyes section that focuses on leadership insights from the unique experiences, perspectives, and wisdom of leaders who have stood at the helm of Aboitiz over the years.

If you enjoyed this article, would like to suggest a topic, or simply share your feedback, please CLICK HERE.