#450： How to Make Time for What Really Matters Every Day
Episode Stats
Summary
Your days seem like a continuous blur of busyness and yet you don t seem to get much done nor remember much about how you spend your time. As a former employee of Google, Mike Geste worked on the very apps and technology that can often suck away our time. Today, he s dedicated to figuring out how to push back against these forces to help people take control of their time and attention. His name is John Zeratsky and he s the co-author of the book, Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day.
Transcript
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Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. Your days seem
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like a continuous blur of busyness and yet you don't seem to get much done nor remember much about
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how you spend your time. As a former employee of Google, Mike Geste worked on the very apps and
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technology that can often suck away our time. Today, he's dedicated to figuring out how to push
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back against these forces to help people take control of their time and attention. His name
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is John Zeratsky and he's the co-author of the book, Make Time, How to Focus on What Matters Every Day.
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Today on the show, John shares how the experience of feeling like he was missing months of his life
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led to him spending years experimenting with habits and routines, looking for the best ways to
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optimize energy, focus, and time. He then shares the simple four-step daily framework that he developed
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from this research and walks us through that system. John talks about choosing one highlight
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each day to ensure your most important work gets done and that your life is full of memorable
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moments. He also shares how to reduce the time you spend in waiting what he calls infinity pools,
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why energy management is just as important as time management, and how reflection is essential
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in figuring out what you're doing is actually working. Lots of valuable direction in this show for
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you to get your life on track and find more hours and meaning of the day. After it's over,
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check out our show notes at awim.is slash make time. John Zeratsky, welcome to the show.
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So you co-authored a book, Make Time, How to Focus on What Matters Every Day. This is interesting
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because your co-author, Jake, and you, you both worked at Google, correct?
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All right. So you guys, and you also spent time designing the apps that people spend a lot of
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time on, right? Gmail, YouTube, the things that people are like, oh, I need to get a handle on
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this stuff. But then you guys come out with a book saying, here's how to manage your time and not be
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distracted by these things we help create. I mean, what was the impetus behind the book?
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Did you guys have a problem with this stuff too?
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Yeah, definitely. So as you pointed out, working in technology, working on these products was such
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an interesting spot for us to be because on the one hand, you were working on, on apps that people
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find very distracting that people struggle with. And so we're kind of on the inside and we know how
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these things are made. And that, that gives us ideas for how people might make some adjustments,
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make some changes to affect that relationship. But the other thing that was pretty interesting was
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technology in many ways is kind of the ground zero or the epicenter for a lot of what's,
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what's crazy about our work cultures and about our, the defaults that we all operate under.
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So, you know, big tech companies, lots of meetings, lots of email, there's instant messaging,
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there's an expectation that you're going to be online, you're going to be plugged in,
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you're going to be responsive. So we definitely, we both struggled working in that environment to
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feel like we were, you know, using our energy and our time while at work, but also having something
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Yeah. I mean, you make the point, like these apps, like they, they help, they definitely help
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our lives, right? They improve our lives. But if you let, you have to learn how to manage it and
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take control of instead of them controlling you, let's talk about, you had this moment,
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this epiphany, right? You were, you were working and you felt like you were just like missing out
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like on months of your life, right? Like you didn't realize that like three months had passed and you
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like, you couldn't remember like what happened during those three months. Tell us about that.
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Yeah. Yeah. So maybe to put that in context, we can go back to 2005 when I graduated from college
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and I was lucky enough to get a job at a tech startup in Chicago called Feedburner.
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And I'd been in school and I had started a little web design business. So, you know, I had sort of
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developed some habits and some ways of making sure I was, I was productive. I was getting things done,
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but I was dropped into this company in this team that was very high performing. It was kind of the
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classic ideal of a tech startup. You know, it was, it was hard work, hustle, long hours, you know,
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people were, were super smart, super talented. And I wanted to thrive in that environment. I wanted
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to make the most of that opportunity. So I got really obsessed with productivity. And when I say
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productivity, I mean it in kind of the, the sense of trying to be as optimized and efficient and,
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and, you know, leave no scrap of time unused. So I, I became obsessed with the book,
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getting things done. That was sort of like my Bible. And I had the filing system and the to-do
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lists. And I had the stack of note cards that I carried with me at all times. And, and to a certain
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extent that worked, but I, but I always felt like there had to be a better way. I felt like being
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productive was good, but it often just kind of made me feel like a machine, you know, just sort of
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like cranking through these endless lists of tasks I needed to do. In 2007, Feedburner was bought by
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Google. And so then I was, I was working at Google and life was, was really good. Like I, you know,
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had this great job. I had a great girlfriend who's not my wife. We had just moved into a new place in
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Chicago. But like you said, I, I woke up one day with kind of this feeling that time was just slipping
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away from me. And I started to try to figure out what was going on. And I realized that I didn't have
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anything of substance going on day to day that I could sort of hold on to. I was in this productivity
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mindset of just cranking through, going to the meetings, answering the emails, getting things
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done. But it was all kind of at this consistent level of these, you know, small tasks. And it just
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led to this feeling that time was, was slipping away. Right. And then, I mean, I think I've,
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we've all experienced that. And I, I, the way I kind of described it, the way I've experienced is
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that I remember as a kid, I had these memories from like being a kid where I just like, like these
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moments, right. That they were really mundane, but for whatever reason they stuck with me. And then as
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an adult, I found like I got fewer of those, right. Because you do this, you do the same thing day in
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and day out and everything just sort of bleeds together. Yeah. I mean, I think that our days,
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you know, living as, as professionals in the 21st century, I think that our days tend to be made up
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of, of mostly small kind of inconsequential tasks, you know, things that happen. And the process of
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forming memories, it, it happens automatically. You know, it just sort of, some things might stick out,
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some things might not, but when, when, when nothing is sort of that big of a deal, I think
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it's difficult to create those memories that, that make you feel like you're, you're living
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in time instead of just like, you know, seeing time move by. I, I read around that time when I was
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struggling, this was like 2008. I, I read a book called Wrapped by Winifred Gallagher. It was a really
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incredible book that has stuck with me for a long time. And she makes the argument that
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your experience of life is not necessarily what happens to you. It's what you pay attention to.
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And that was a big turning point for me. I realized that if I started to intentionally build my days
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around the things that I wanted to remember, then I could choose to pay attention to those.
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And that would, that would have the effect of sort of slowing down the passage of time,
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very much like, you know, being a kid and, and just having those, those, those summers that went
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on and on and those amazing memories from, from those days. Yeah. So, okay. The solution to this
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was this thing you called highlights. So what is a highlight? Yeah. So a highlight is the one
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activity or thing that you want to prioritize and protect in your day. So the idea is that
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it's not the only thing you'll do, you know, and it's not like, you know, I don't think I'm
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unrealistic. You know, I don't want to encourage people to like, you know, have this expectation
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that they can completely clear their calendar, clear their day. But by choosing a highlight,
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you can kind of build your day around it. You can make sure that no matter what else happens,
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you made time for that one thing. And, and you can, you can feel like that time was well spent.
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So I mean, what's an example of that? I mean, is this like, are the highlights like work related
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or are they like something that just makes your life meaningful that you want to do?
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Yeah. For me, they're, they're all of the above. They, they tend to be more work related stuff
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for me. You know, like I often spend time on my highlight first thing in the morning,
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right after I wake up, I went through this, this process of becoming a morning person about five,
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six years ago. So I love to wake up, make some coffee and work on my highlight, which is usually
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writing something or doing some kind of design work or something that's related to work.
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But in the book, we talk about a few different kind of approaches for coming up with your highlight.
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And what I described is, I think, kind of an example of, of satisfaction, you know, looking at
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what task or activity is going to be really satisfying. It's not necessarily the most urgent thing,
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but it's the thing that it's, it's going to be a good chunk of work that you, you want to do and
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you feel good about doing it. But sometimes my highlight is something that needs to get done,
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you know, something that's, that's urgent. And that's another strategy. And, and a lot of times,
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you know, like on Saturday, my wife and I are, we just moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and we're taking
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a food tour. That's sort of a, a tour of Milwaukee for Milwaukeeans. And so I know that on Saturday,
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like, that's going to be my highlight, like, that's going to be the thing. It's, it's not something
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I have to get done. It's not something productive, but it's something that I want to do. And I'm going
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to kind of build my day around really enjoying and savoring that.
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So if you, so as long as you accomplish your highlight, like that day was a win, even if you
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That's, I mean, that's, that's my take, you know, I think there's always,
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there's always bad stuff that can happen to us, but my experience, and I think experience that's
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backed up by some research and, and by experience of experiences of other people, people who have,
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who have read about this stuff as we've been writing about it before the book, you know, just on,
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on the web, it seems to be the case that when you build your days around one thing that you want
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to make time for time moves more slowly and you feel better about the way you spent that time.
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So let's talk about how you establish these highlights. Cause like, I think people have
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heard the idea of, you know, style, you know, people establish goals for themselves, but usually
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goals are often abstract and too far away in the future. It's like, well, save for retirement or
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like, I'm going to go on a vacation. Totally. So how does a highlight differ from a goal in that regard?
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Yeah. I mean, a highlight is really short term. It's, it's something that you want to do that day.
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It's very much a daily process. And I think Jake and I kind of have this, this hypothesis that
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most advice about time management and self-help kind of stuff is, is way too intimidating.
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You know, it was really big. It's like, it's like, you know, what do you want your life to be? You
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know, where do you want to be in five years? You know, it's, it's really grand. And I think when
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you're, when you're feeling busy and you're feeling distracted and you're feeling like you're,
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you're on autopilot and like the days are sort of flying by, trying to break from that and all
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of a sudden shift into thinking about these grand plans, I think is, is pretty tough. It's pretty
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unrealistic. So our belief is that if you can start small, you can start by identifying what you want
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to do that day, the thing you want to make time for, and then starting to, to reclaim a little
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bit of the time that you might otherwise lose to, to your smartphone, social media, meetings, email,
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whatever, a lot of these default behaviors. If you can start to reclaim a little bit of that time,
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it can build from there. You'll have a little bit more space, a little bit more time to think
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about what's important to you. You'll recognize the things that you enjoy doing, the things that
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are motivating to you and that create that clarity and sense of purpose around your time. And those
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might build into something really grand and big. They might build into, you know, some trip or a
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career change or retirement, but they might not. They might just be something that makes your existing
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life a little bit better, a little bit slower, a little bit, you know, more joyful.
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Well, one example you give in the book of a highlight was you and your wife built this boat
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and wanted to go sailing. So that's like a huge goal. So like, did you just, did you just break
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it down? Like, you know, you decided Saturday is going to be boat day. I'm going to make at least
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two hours for boat day. Is that how that worked?
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Kind of. Yeah. And just to make sure that I'm not getting any undue credit, we did not build a boat.
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Yeah. We, we bought an old boat and then we ended up selling that one and getting a different boat. And,
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and yeah, we, we ultimately ended up spending about eight months on the boat. We sailed from San
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Francisco all the way down the coast of North America to Panama. Boat's in Panama right now,
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and we'll be spending another probably six months on the boat this winter. But yeah,
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what you said about, you know, sort of on the weekend days, using that same approach of having
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a highlight and saying, you know, what's the thing that, that we want to focus on now that's going
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to move us toward this goal. That's exactly what we did. I think that, I think that we were,
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so I, I've kind of a maybe unconventional way of thinking about goals. And it said,
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I feel like goals are risky. I think that you touched on how there's sort of these,
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these abstract amorphous things. And I think that they, they create sort of a,
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a feeling that we're not good enough yet because we haven't reached our goal.
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And if only we reach our goal, then we'll, we'll be satisfied. Then we'll, we'll be happy
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with ourselves, which, which I don't think is a great, a great way to live day to day.
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I also think that they blind us to what's happening in the present. If we become so fixed on
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a goal that we're working toward, we might not notice when our priorities change.
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We might not follow something that comes, that appears that we enjoy doing in the meantime.
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So for, for my wife and, and me, we, I wouldn't say that we made this sailing plan. It's called
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cruising in the sailing world. That's the idea of, of traveling by sailboat. I wouldn't say that
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we made cruising a goal until very late in the game, until, until we got to the point where like,
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there was, there was a finite set of things that we needed to do to prepare the boat,
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to prepare ourselves, to be ready to actually leave at a certain time. And then, you know,
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we got into, you know, making spreadsheets and to-do lists and all that sort of typical stuff you do
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when you're managing a big project. But, but earlier on, for me, it was really about trying to
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find the, the skills or the behaviors that I wanted to develop so that I would be in a position
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to go cruising, to pursue this goal and use my highlights and use my time to develop those skills
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and those behaviors. And so you guys, I mean, as you said, there's different ways to pick your
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highlight of the day. One could be, you know, the sense of urgency, like this has to get done,
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right? In order for me to move forward at work, whatever. So that's one way to pick a highlight.
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Right. And the other one is just like, also like joy and satisfaction. Like the one thing you think,
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yeah, that's tricky too, because sometimes we think something will give us satisfaction and joy,
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but we do it and it doesn't. But I mean, I think that's one of the nice things about highlights
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instead of like, you know, one, one of the problems with goals, as you said, you kind of get fixated on
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it and you get goal lock and you keep pursuing it because like, you feel like you should, but like
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with the, I feel like the highlight concept, it's a little more, it's flexible. So it's like,
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well, that didn't, that didn't really bring me satisfaction. All right, move on to something
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else. Yeah, totally. I mean, flexibility and really like forgiveness, you know, it's sort of,
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those are some of the key philosophies behind this book. You know, Jake and I being obsessed with
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this idea of redesigning time of how we spend our time. We've read tons of books and blog posts and,
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you know, we've read all the things about, you know, the, the 18 things you should do before 8am
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and that, that, all that kind of advice that you see. And I, I just feel like so much of it is so,
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so intense and so unforgiving. And so we, we think that making these changes to how you're spending your
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time is, is better approached from a standpoint of flexibility and forgiveness to be able to say,
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you know, I don't know what I want to be doing in five years. And I know I'm not going to completely
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remake my life overnight. And I'm not going to adopt this exact set of steps that is,
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is, you know, kind of being presented as a framework. But if I can start small and every day
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I can try to make time for something that is important, we know that people can, can build and
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those changes can compound. And, you know, Jake and I both found that those led us to places,
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you know, with the, the sailing stuff and with writing that approach led us to places in our,
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in our lives that we didn't necessarily plan. Those weren't necessarily goals. They weren't
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things that we saw coming. I mean, another sort of mindset shift that you, that I thought was really
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useful. Let's take this task of getting a boat ready to go sailing around the world. You know,
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as you said, there's like all these things you have to do to get ready and the tendency,
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you know, the self, you know, the productivity books to say like, you need to, you know, set a
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deadline for each of these little tasks. Right. But then like, I've done that before. And what ends
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up happening is like all of my tasks are overdue. I've got that. Like right now I use Todoist and I'm
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like, all right, this week, this task is going to be done by this stuff. And then like, it was due two
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days ago. And it's like in red saying, I need, it's, I need to get this done. You, you guys said,
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instead of doing that, like having these sort of like assigned tasks for certain days, like have,
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instead of like a task, like have, have a, a might, or instead of having a to-do list, have a,
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a might do list. Right. So it's like you go in like, so today is boat day. I'm going to spend two
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hours. Here's a list of tasks that I could possibly do. And why do you think that's so powerful and like
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moving forward on those things that are really meaningful to you?
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Yeah. And that's very much how I, how I plan my days, you know, ongoing. I think that what's
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powerful about the might do list is that it separates the decision about what you should do
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or what you could do from the act of doing it. I think that if you sit down in front of a to-do list
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that is neatly organized and categorized and everything's got a priority and a deadline and
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all these different things, there's, there's a, a chance, a good chance that you're not going to
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end up spending time on the most important things. You might, you might knock off the easy things or
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the things that are maybe the, they appear the most urgent because you put a date on them and
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they're overdue, but maybe they're not actually the most important things that you should be doing.
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Whereas I think if you, if you have a list, a might do list, what I call it. And before you sit
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down to start working on that stuff, you, you review that and you think about what's important
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to do in that time. And then you schedule it. I think that you have a much better chance of
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actually spending your time on the things that are important. So I, I don't even use a to-do list
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at all. I just have a note in Google keep. So it's on my computer and on my phone. It's just my,
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like one big might do list and it has a couple of headings in it, but there's no like priority.
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There's no dates that the calendar is really where I sort of handle, you know, the question of when
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am I going to do things? But, but I, I think that that very human process of, of reviewing and
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intuitively deciding here's what's important now is essential. And I think it's something that to-do
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lists don't necessarily help us do. Yeah. One thing I've noticed whenever I'm working on a larger
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task and I create to-do list, like as I get started working on the project, like I realized that what
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I thought was urgent is no longer urgent or I need to solve this other problem first before I get to
00:22:35.680
this. So it's like, I don't know. I think the idea of a might do list gives them flexibility to,
00:22:39.980
when you actually get started, you can make adaptations. Yeah. Well, and, and it's,
00:22:44.600
it's kind of a, it's kind of a trick, right? It's like part of it is just in the framing,
00:22:49.440
you know, this idea that instead of a to-do list, it's, it's a might do list. You know, it's, it's,
00:22:54.320
I think in that spirit of, of forgiveness and flexibility that we talked about a few minutes
00:22:59.080
ago. And there's maybe, maybe that's not the most life-changing shift in thinking, but I do think
00:23:05.260
that there's something valuable about it. So we're going to be flexible with, you know, what we do
00:23:11.880
with this highlight, whatever we pick at it, whatever we pick it to be. And here's the
00:23:16.160
question. Can you, can your highlight change from day to day? Or is this something where you, it's
00:23:19.180
like you, you sit down on Sunday and here's like another typical productivity tip. You got to plan
00:23:23.800
your week on Sunday night and, you know, decide what you're going to do each day of the week.
00:23:28.820
Or is this concept a little more flexible? It's like, well, you know, today is going to be boat day or
00:23:34.860
today is going to be writing memo day or whatever. Yeah. How does that work? Yeah. So make time is
00:23:41.660
really a daily framework. So we think that the day is kind of the, the sweet spot. That's the
00:23:48.200
right size that we are capable of both thinking about in a productive way, but then actually acting
00:23:55.080
on, you know, when you create that plan for the week or, or, you know, the, the one-year plan or the
00:23:59.980
five-year plan for yourself, it's too difficult to, to predict, to know what's, what's really going
00:24:05.640
to happen, how you're going to feel, what else is going to happen to you. And so the day kind of
00:24:12.440
feels like a sweet spot. So setting highlight is a daily activity. The other steps in the,
00:24:19.840
the make time framework, laser, energize and, and reflect, which we'll, I'm sure we'll talk about.
00:24:26.180
Those are all daily activities. And yeah, the highlight can totally be, can be something different
00:24:31.580
every day. You know, you can kind of jump between one day there might be something urgent you need
00:24:35.600
to take care of. And then once you've got that off your plate, the next day you feel like you can do
00:24:39.200
something really satisfying. The end of the week rolls around and you, and you choose a joyful
00:24:44.240
highlight, something that is just going to be really fun for you. The, the kind of the twist on
00:24:49.240
that or the exception is when, when we're working on a big project, we often find it valuable to think
00:24:56.340
of sort of a, a personal sprint. So essentially choosing the same highlight every day for a week
00:25:04.120
or for longer or highlights that are thematically related. So if you're, if you're working on,
00:25:10.680
you know, creating something new, and this was the case when we were, when we were writing make time,
00:25:15.900
you know, pretty much every day with the, with a few exceptions, my highlight was about make time.
00:25:22.420
It was about writing, you know, writing a draft of the next chapter or reviewing something that
00:25:28.080
Jake had written or working on outlining a certain section, but having a sort of similar or the same
00:25:36.300
highlight day after day, I think really allows us to, to get into the groove, to get into flow in a
00:25:41.400
way that's difficult to do just, you know, within one day, but that's kind of an advanced move. That's
00:25:47.320
not, you know, that's not really like sort of the, the basic way that, that the highlight works.
00:25:52.420
Right. Well, you actually, you guys coauthored a book called Sprint as well, where you kind of,
00:25:56.300
where you talk about the system you all used at Google to, you know, get these big projects
00:26:04.500
Yeah. So, so that book is about the five day design sprint process where a team goes from idea or
00:26:12.180
challenge to a prototype that they can test with customers in five days. And, and running those
00:26:19.580
sprints was, was really interesting for us because it was almost like a, a time management
00:26:25.340
laboratory where we got to bring all these people in and work with them and see how, see how people
00:26:31.780
reacted to changes in the defaults of how we spend our time and make tweaks and try to improve things
00:26:39.680
and see how it went. And one of the things that was, was really interesting is just the gains that you
00:26:46.180
get from focusing on the same thing for a week, instead of trying to move projects forward by,
00:26:53.640
you know, little bit and little bit when you can, excuse me, when you can sort of load all of that
00:27:01.680
knowledge and expertise about what you're working on into your, your working memory, you know, as a,
00:27:08.200
into your brain. It's not like you make, you know, five times as much progress because it's five days.
00:27:14.000
You make, you make way more, you make so much more progress because you don't have to, you don't
00:27:18.940
have the switching costs. You don't have to reload your working memory every time you try to pick up
00:27:22.600
that project again. Gotcha. So I was thinking as I was listening to you, like taking this to,
00:27:27.060
I can see how I work in your work life, right? There's a big project. You just spend five days
00:27:31.680
and every day that your highlight is going to be working on this project and moving it forward.
00:27:35.780
I was thinking in your personal life, right? Like one of the things that people try to do,
00:27:41.320
they try to do bits and pieces, like getting their house organized or their garage organized.
00:27:45.260
Yeah. So they like, you know, they spend like basically an hour every Saturday. That's all
00:27:49.820
they got. But like, maybe you just set aside, okay, this week, every night for just an hour,
00:27:55.640
our highlight is clean out and organize the garage. Yeah, totally. Yeah. I mean, I think that like
00:28:01.540
that way of thinking about a project can be, you know, almost freeing and really,
00:28:12.340
really motivating because when you have the clarity that that's what you have decided to do,
00:28:17.360
and that's what's important, you no longer feel like you're trying to squeeze it in,
00:28:20.820
in between other stuff or kind of making that decision in real time. Like, oh, you know, I could
00:28:26.900
watch TV, but I really should clean the garage. Like when you've, when you've sort of made a plan
00:28:31.320
and said, you know, this is going to be, this is going to be my highlight is to, is to, and after
00:28:35.680
we finish dinner, we're going to go and we're going to work in the garage for an hour. I think
00:28:39.500
it allows you to, to, to look forward to that and to, to enjoy it more, even if it's something
00:28:44.840
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thegreatcoursesplus.com slash manliness. And now back to the show.
00:30:48.880
So we're pretty flexible with, you know, the to-do list, might-do list, but the one thing you don't
00:30:54.820
want to be flexible with on the highlight is like you set aside time for it and like you basically
00:31:02.100
Yeah. Yeah, that's right. So when people are getting started with this, we kind of think that
00:31:08.980
60 to 90 minutes is a good chunk of time to spend on a highlight. It's something that
00:31:15.160
most people can realistically create by adjusting their schedule and by reclaiming time from distracting
00:31:25.080
and addicting apps and devices. But it's also, it's long enough that you can really,
00:31:31.960
you can sink your teeth into it. You can kind of get in the groove. You can get into flow. You can,
00:31:37.180
you can feel like it was, it was worthwhile. It was something meaningful.
00:31:42.080
All right. So let's talk about, so we set aside, we've picked our highlight. We set aside time for it.
00:31:46.900
We're going to protect it with our life, say no to things, right? And I think, you know,
00:31:51.160
that's the hard part for people. Stuff comes up and you think, well,
00:31:53.960
it's my highlight. I'm working on the garage. I could probably do that. Just say, say I got,
00:31:59.300
I already got plans and people won't say anything. Let's talk about the, those things that distract
00:32:05.400
us, right? That can sort of, if we spend too much time on it, it can seep into our, our highlight time.
00:32:12.420
So you call these, you know, let's talk about you guys worked at Google. You call these things like
00:32:17.180
email, YouTube, even web browsers. You call these things infinity pools. Why, why is that?
00:32:22.980
Yeah. So an infinity pool is any app or service or product that has an infinite and replenishing
00:32:32.980
source of content inside of it. If you can pull to refresh or if it streams nonstop, you know,
00:32:41.460
you know, like the, the Netflix example of, of starting the next episode right after the previous
00:32:46.680
one ends, that's an infinity pool. And we, we kind of came up with that term because,
00:32:50.640
you know, there, there's always more water in the pool. You know, you can always jump back in.
00:32:55.780
It's the level is never going to go down. It's never going to go away. It's never going to be,
00:32:59.580
be empty. And, and these are really challenging. You know, these are, infinity pools are a new
00:33:05.720
invention in the history of humankind until just like 10 years ago, most things in our world were
00:33:14.320
finite and infinity pools. They really, they pull on several of the threads that make up the fabric
00:33:24.440
of who we are as humans, as you know, of how we evolved. For example, we evolved to really care
00:33:31.720
about people and stories and gossip. So social media, you know, Instagram showing photos of what
00:33:38.120
other people are doing and what, what their lives are like. That's very appealing to us.
00:33:42.760
We are naturally susceptible to distraction because if you think about a pre-industrial,
00:33:50.940
pre-agricultural world, if there's a flash in the corner of your eye, you should probably check and
00:33:56.540
look what it is. You know, it might be a tree falling or it might be a, a, a large animal. It might
00:34:02.180
be, you know, something you need to be aware of. Whereas today, most of the distractions are not
00:34:06.580
actually important. And, and we also evolved to value what psychologists call variable rewards
00:34:14.720
or random rewards. And sort of the classic example of this is a slot machine where you pull the handle
00:34:21.240
and it's really easy and low cost to pull the handle. And most times nothing happens or nothing
00:34:26.880
good happens, but on occasion, something amazing happens. There's always the chance that something
00:34:31.920
really great is going to happen when you pull that handle. And if you think about it, that's exactly
00:34:36.380
what these infinity pool apps are like. And we, we sort of evolved to, to value those things as well,
00:34:43.500
because imagine you're, you're hunting, you're gathering, you're trying to find food that you
00:34:48.940
need to survive. And, you know, some days you might go out and come back empty-handed, but every once in a
00:34:55.400
while, something great happens. Every once in a while, you, you know, you make a big kill or you come
00:35:01.780
across, you know, a bush with that's, that's full of berries or, you know, you find some ripe fruit or
00:35:07.000
something like that. And so really deep in our DNA, we've got this, this appreciation for, and this
00:35:13.040
love of these variable rewards. I mean, the other thing about infinity pools, if we're the whole goal
00:35:19.660
of make time is to have more of these moments in our life or that we remember, I think with infinity
00:35:26.020
pools, like if I look back and I think I've been using the internet for, I don't know, however long,
00:35:30.020
15, I don't know. I can't even, that's the thing. Like it's all slipped by me. It's all amorphous,
00:35:34.740
but like, I can't remember like a moment, like being on the internet and being like, I remember
00:35:39.400
when I read this Reddit thread and it was awesome. I remember when I scrolled through Instagram,
00:35:44.080
I saw this cool, like that never happens. Yeah. Right.
00:35:50.380
Yeah, that's totally true. And so I think like the combination of these, these innate human
00:35:56.740
characteristics with the, just the sheer convenience, you know, just the fact that these
00:36:01.020
things are, are in our pockets or in our, our handbags or right in front of us is just kind of
00:36:06.640
this perfect storm. It's just this, this really powerful cocktail that tends to, to suck time
00:36:15.220
away from us in a way that we don't even notice is happening. And those behaviors, one of the things
00:36:21.400
we talk about a lot in the book is this idea of, of defaults, how these behaviors are not necessarily
00:36:27.660
things we decided to do. It's not like there's some, you know, grandmaster plan for the, the best
00:36:34.900
way to, to spend your time every day. But because these infinity pool apps have become the defaults in
00:36:42.760
our world, many of us just kind of find ourselves mindlessly checking them. Or we, we pick up our
00:36:50.080
phone for a quick check of something and we end up doing something else. And so what Jake and I
00:36:56.460
have done and what we encourage people to do is to think about ways that they can change those
00:37:01.020
defaults. Right. So, I mean, some of you guys get pretty drastic, like someone was like, just remove
00:37:06.020
your email app from your phone, remove your web browser from your phone. Yeah. Yeah. And the,
00:37:11.980
they're all based on the same idea, which is that the best way to avoid distraction is to make it
00:37:17.640
more difficult to get distracted. So to remove those or sorry, to create barriers to distraction
00:37:23.700
designers like us, we've spent years and years trying to remove the barriers, trying to make
00:37:29.100
apps like email and Facebook and Twitter and YouTube as easy to get into and as easy to use
00:37:36.280
as possible. You don't have to sign in, you stay signed in. You don't have to even think to open the
00:37:41.000
app because there's a notification on your phone that reminds you about it.
00:37:43.780
And we believe that by creating barriers to distraction, you can take willpower out of the
00:37:51.900
equation. You can take self-control out of the equation. You don't need to constantly resist the
00:37:56.940
urge to check these things, but by removing apps from your phone, by signing out of websites that are
00:38:05.840
very distracting, even doing things like rearranging your living room so that the TV is not the focal point
00:38:12.320
can just make it a little bit more difficult to get sucked into these infinity pools.
00:38:17.580
And they have the result then of freeing up that time for other things, freeing up that time for
00:38:23.080
Right. And I think one tactic, like people are like, man, how could I ever like get by without
00:38:27.680
email on my phone or a web browser? I mean, like with email, I actually, I don't have email on my
00:38:33.180
phone anymore either. And what kind of finally realized, got me to remove is like, I've never answered
00:38:39.120
email from my phone ever. Yeah. All you do is look at it and get stressed out about all the
00:38:44.000
things you're not answering. Right. So yeah, I guess just be thoughtful about the apps you have
00:38:48.740
on your phone. You guys also give suggestions. You have a website, right? What's the website?
00:38:53.560
MakeTime? Oh yeah. For the book, the website is called maketimebook.com. That's the domain.
00:38:58.560
But you also mean you offer, you know, app suggestions that you can block, you know, certain things on your
00:39:02.760
phone and that's, that's all useful. So the idea is just figure out what your defaults are and then
00:39:07.260
rearrange those defaults to put obstruction between getting into these infinity pools.
00:39:11.700
Yeah. And, and as you, you touched on, like it can be, it can be pretty daunting or pretty extreme
00:39:17.780
to think about, wow, like no email on my phone. Like that's crazy. But we, we encourage people to
00:39:24.520
think about when it comes to infinity pool apps, we encourage people to think about what's the underlying
00:39:32.300
value or purpose for using that thing. Cause you know, we, we start using an app or service or a
00:39:39.180
tool for a reason, you know, there's, there's obviously something good about it. So for example,
00:39:43.800
you might, you might be thinking about Facebook and you might think, well, you know, I like using
00:39:48.340
Facebook because it allows me to keep in touch with my family and I can see pictures of my, you know,
00:39:53.680
my friend's kids or something like that. And, and kind of follow that thread through to the conclusion
00:40:00.380
of like, well, will I still be able to do that if I don't have it on my phone, if I don't have it at
00:40:07.600
my fingertips at every moment? And the answer in, in most cases is yes. You know, I use Twitter for a lot
00:40:15.120
of kind of work related stuff. That's how I kind of promote my work and talk to readers and answer
00:40:21.680
questions. Um, but I don't need it on my phone. I don't need to be, have access to it 24 seven to do
00:40:28.100
that. I use Twitter on my computer. I use it for a limited time each day. And when I'm done with it,
00:40:34.240
I, I log out and I close the tab and I go on with my day. Email kind of fits into that as well.
00:40:41.440
There's actually some pretty interesting research that we write about in the book where people who
00:40:47.320
spend less time on email actually get better at email. So, um, they're able to respond like the,
00:40:54.680
the time that it takes per message to respond, like gets shorter and shorter when people,
00:41:00.840
you know, just do email at the end of the day or just have like a certain chunk of time when they
00:41:05.340
do email. So I think the, the kind of the perspective that I'm talking through here is
00:41:11.800
trying to be clear about why you use these things and then ask yourself the question of whether it
00:41:17.540
needs to be always on, you know, always at your fingertips. All right. So this is one of these
00:41:22.000
tactics you guys highlights about you, you all highlight about, you know, this laser focus part
00:41:27.440
of the, the make time process. So you have your highlights and then you're going to laser in on it
00:41:32.140
where you're going to avoid distraction. So yeah, avoid these infinity pools, but you also talk about,
00:41:37.080
you know, avoiding, I mean, one of the, you talk about, I think that's a really point,
00:41:40.780
interesting point you made in the book. Cause I've fallen into this trap is avoiding getting
00:41:44.920
caught up, like spending so much time on your productivity system that you actually don't get
00:41:50.160
actual things done. Right. So it's basically avoid the fancy tools. Cause that, that can get really
00:41:55.840
exciting. That's right. Yeah. And that's another one that, uh, came directly out of my own
00:42:02.840
experience, you know, just being, you know, nerding out on like, uh, all the different to-do
00:42:08.400
list apps and the, you know, the, uh, project management apps and that kind of stuff. I think
00:42:14.360
that, that these, you know, I call them fancy tools. They, they feel like work, but they're not
00:42:21.760
actually work. You know, if you, if you have an idea for an app that you are thinking of building,
00:42:26.540
you know, instead of, you know, just grabbing a piece of paper and start sketching what the UI
00:42:31.900
looks like, you know, you think, Oh, I need to have a fancy notebook and a really nice pen.
00:42:38.040
Or if you want to start writing something, you know, you have to go and download and install like
00:42:42.380
a, you know, a distraction free writing app or like a, you know, one of these like dedicated
00:42:48.120
screenplay writing apps. And, and, and those are just like sort of a form of procrastination.
00:42:53.140
You know, there are things that I think are, are easy to get into because they're kind of fun
00:42:57.780
and they, they're the, the path of least resistance. But when we really stop and think
00:43:03.040
about it, they're not actually what we want to be doing, what we want to be spending our time on.
00:43:07.120
Right. They, they, they distract you. All right. So there's pick your highlight. You're going to laser
00:43:11.780
and there's a whole bunch of tactics, you know, and we've talked about some of them avoiding the
00:43:15.620
energy, the infinity pools. The next part of the, the make time process is energize. So this is like
00:43:22.900
basically energy management. Why do you think that's an important part of personal productivity?
00:43:27.080
I think that focusing on building energy is important because it helps us, helps us avoid
00:43:35.360
distraction in the first place and, and, and kind of make better decisions in those moments,
00:43:40.920
you know, day to day about what we're going to do next. So I've, I've definitely been in a situation
00:43:46.980
where like, you know, I wake up and maybe I stayed up too late or maybe I was like, you know, I was
00:43:52.560
watching TV too late or I, you know, I drank a little bit too much or I had like a, you know,
00:43:57.380
a huge meal or something like that. And I wake up and I feel groggy or, or sluggish or, you know,
00:44:03.080
not, not energized. And on those mornings, I'm way more likely to, you know, jump into my email or,
00:44:09.840
or open Twitter right away instead of spending time on my highlight. And, you know, I think,
00:44:15.500
I think if you've ever, you know, felt really sluggish after a big lunch, or if you've ever,
00:44:19.700
you know, felt kind of clear headed and invigorated after, after going for a run,
00:44:25.120
you can kind of, you can kind of see this connection between the energy that we create
00:44:30.700
with our bodies and how that affects the decisions and the things that we do with our brains.
00:44:35.920
Right. So basically, you know, the advice is like, basically the stuff you've been hearing your
00:44:39.580
entire life and how to live a healthy life, get like, you know, get plenty of sleep, you know,
00:44:43.780
eat right, exercise, any other tactics that you found to be very, you know, pretty useful and
00:44:50.820
Yeah. The, the big categories, like you're saying, are kind of the, the stuff that everybody
00:44:56.160
already knows. So, so food, exercise, sleep. And then we also think that, that finding quiet,
00:45:04.100
you know, moments of quiet away from the noise of, of modern life and spending face-to-face time
00:45:10.120
with other people. We think that these are really important ways to build energy, but, but we also
00:45:15.460
know that like this kind of advice is like, it's everywhere and everybody already knows about it.
00:45:19.940
So, so we try to translate that into really concrete, specific tactics that people can try
00:45:25.720
and that it doesn't represent, you know, some dramatically new extreme diet or some like
00:45:32.420
super intense workout program, but kind of little things that, that you can fit into your day.
00:45:38.480
Right. And also I'm, I'm, could like these things be a highlight for somebody?
00:45:43.480
It definitely could be. I mean, I think that there's a, you know, depending on what you're
00:45:48.920
into and what you like, you know, for example, cooking is, as I think a, a, an activity that
00:45:54.360
can be, it can be a highlight. It can be something that improves the, the healthfulness of the food
00:46:00.180
that you eat. And it can also be a way to, to give yourself energy by using your body, by moving
00:46:07.740
your body. I actually took a lot of inspiration from, from some of your writing, Brett about like
00:46:13.600
kind of the, the strenuous life, this idea of, of doing things, you know, of, of having a, a DIY life
00:46:21.420
instead of a remote control life, you know, when, you know, instead of ordering, ordering delivery and,
00:46:28.000
and, you know, using the laundry apps and the, you know, grocery delivery and all these things,
00:46:32.460
all these conveniences that are available, something like cooking kind of hits a few of
00:46:37.460
those principles at the same time. No. Yeah. I think that's an interesting point. We've,
00:46:41.880
we, we did a series on Winston Churchill. One of the interesting things about this guy,
00:46:45.480
he had, he had a weird schedule. Like he stayed up late, he slept in, you know, he would dictate to
00:46:51.420
his secretary while he was in his pajamas, in his bed or in his bathtub, you know, weird guy,
00:46:56.180
you know, but he worked hard. Like when he was working, he was working hard,
00:46:58.680
but for a break, instead of just taking it easy, like he would go like build a wall in his garden
00:47:06.180
or go paint. Um, and that energized him to go back to whatever else you had to do.
00:47:11.820
Totally. Yeah. I feel that as well. Like, um, I, I get a lot of satisfaction and, and frankly,
00:47:18.820
a lot of energy out of doing things the hard way, you know, kind of choosing the, the manual route,
00:47:24.340
doing things to where there, there's a clear, there is a clear sort of convenient way to,
00:47:31.540
to do the thing, but choosing the harder way, you know, walking is, is a perfect example. It
00:47:36.640
obviously, it takes longer to walk most times, but it actually, I feel like it, it actually creates
00:47:43.740
time because I'm getting energy from that activity, but I, I also have additional mental
00:47:51.640
space that is happening while I'm walking, you know, same with, with cleaning or cooking or,
00:47:58.440
or, you know, carrying something home from the store, you know, it creates kind of this,
00:48:03.800
this meditative space, this, this opportunity to, to allow ideas to emerge, to start to kind of reflect
00:48:11.960
on, on what you're doing, how you're spending your time. So yeah, for me, those sort of,
00:48:19.280
you know, hands-on almost those intentionally inconvenient approaches to everyday activities
00:48:26.580
are, are really important. No. Yeah. I've, I've noticed that like whenever I do nothing,
00:48:31.940
it always sounds appealing, but then doing nothing can often just be like exhausting. I don't know why.
00:48:38.920
So I've actually do something on my, like a break. I come back to work more energized. It's,
00:48:43.880
it's bizarre. I don't know why it works that way.
00:48:45.940
Yeah. I mean, like taking a break from work and, and, and checking, you know, Twitter is kind of
00:48:52.040
like the classic example of that. It's like, Oh, like this will be a cool break. I'll, you know,
00:48:57.420
I'll, I'll, I'll catch up on what's going on. And then you get done with it and you're like, wait,
00:49:01.300
that wasn't a break. Like I don't, I don't feel refreshed. I don't feel renewed. Um, now I need it.
00:49:07.620
Yeah. Right. Right. A real break. All right. So, uh, you know, just basically take care of yourself
00:49:12.580
so you can be more productive when you're working on things that are important. So there's highlights
00:49:17.100
of laser energize, and then there's this reflect. What does that reflection process look like?
00:49:22.920
Yeah. So reflect might be the most important part of, of the whole thing. And the idea is that
00:49:29.920
you'll spend just a couple minutes every day thinking back on, on how your day went. What was
00:49:36.880
your highlight? Did you have time for it? And which tactics did you use? Are there things from
00:49:44.440
the book that you tried and did they work well? And if they didn't work well, what do you want to
00:49:49.260
try again tomorrow? For me, this is something that like, I've been, I've been kind of thinking
00:49:55.080
about this stuff for so long. And I've been on this, this journey for so long that I, I do a lot
00:50:00.240
of this reflection kind of intuitively. I have space in my day where I'm, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm
00:50:07.980
walking or, or, um, you know, not actively engaged in, in work. And I'm, I'm always thinking about,
00:50:15.280
you know, just how things are going, but I know that I'm a little bit weird in that, in that way.
00:50:20.880
So at the same time, there's a lot of advice out there. I think about journaling and about stuff
00:50:27.760
like that, that can, can feel pretty overwhelming. So we're trying to offer people a very small,
00:50:35.520
very bite-sized activity that they can do to basically answer a couple of questions and put
00:50:41.460
themselves in this experimental mindset, put themselves in this way of thinking that doesn't
00:50:48.580
have perfection as a goal, doesn't have the, the perfect application of this, this 20 part system,
00:50:55.720
but just has this spirit of like, just do a little, just get a little better every day.
00:51:01.700
Just do something a little different every day and see how it goes for you.
00:51:05.520
And here's the question, like, how do you keep this up day in and day out? Cause that's the problem
00:51:09.020
with what I found with like productivity systems, right? Like, you know, get, getting things done.
00:51:13.440
For example, I did that too, back in whenever 2007, 2006 came out and it's like, yeah, this is
00:51:19.580
really cool. I went out and bought all the stuff and I did it for like two weeks. And then it's like,
00:51:23.500
no, uh, yeah, it's gonna, I got that collection of GTD stuff sitting there now. Um, so like with
00:51:31.120
this, like, how do you keep it up day in and day out?
00:51:33.720
Yeah. I mean, I think that as much as possible, it's helpful to, to try to make some of these things
00:51:42.020
automatic. So I know there's a lot of advice out there about, about creating habits and, and I'm
00:51:48.120
certainly not an expert on that, but I think to the extent that you can create habits around these
00:51:53.320
activities, that's, that's really helpful. I think even just, just shifting a mindset can really
00:51:59.320
reinforce certain behaviors. But at the same time, like I, I don't know that there is necessarily
00:52:08.340
an easy answer to that question. I think, I think part of it has to come from an external sense of
00:52:16.200
motivation, a sense that you want to change things or that you want to work toward something better.
00:52:21.820
And, and, and I think that that's one of the, one of the results of this approach to making time that
00:52:30.740
as you start to create a little bit of space every day, you start to get a clearer view of,
00:52:37.380
of where you're headed and what's important to you. For example, when my wife and I were just starting
00:52:43.340
to get into sailing and we were spending time learning about our boat and fixing up our boat and
00:52:48.020
taking short trips on the boat, you know, we didn't necessarily have some grand plan that we
00:52:54.820
were working toward, but the more time we spent on it and the more we use these techniques to create
00:53:01.000
space in our days, the stronger motivation we were able to build about what we were working toward.
00:53:08.640
And so, you know, I don't have a perfect formula for, for how to, you know, change your behavior
00:53:15.860
overnight, how to, how to make these changes stick. But I do think that starting to, to slow things
00:53:22.220
down and create a little bit of space every day is the first step. Well, John, where can people go to
00:53:27.560
learn more about the book? We already talked about make time book, right? That's right. Yeah.
00:53:30.720
Make time book.com. Great place to go just to follow everything that Jake and I are doing and
00:53:36.260
writing about is time dorks. Time dorks. So that's our newsletter. It's all about experiments
00:53:41.560
and time management. And then perhaps ironically, I would suggest that people follow me on Twitter
00:53:46.720
as well. My username is Jazzer, J-A-Z-E-R. It's when they're taking their fake break,
00:53:53.320
they can check you out. Exactly. Well, Hey, John, this has been a great conversation.
00:53:57.320
Thanks for coming on. Yeah. Thank you so much, Brad. My guest there is John Zorasky. He's the coauthor
00:54:01.720
of the book, Make Time. It's available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere. You can also find out
00:54:06.060
more information about the book at his website, maketimebook.com, all one word. You can find
00:54:10.520
links to tools and free resources there. Also check out our show notes at aom.is slash make time,
00:54:16.420
where you can find links to resources, where you can delve deeper into this topic and to put it into
00:54:19.940
action. Well, that wraps up another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. For more manly tips and
00:54:36.460
advice, make sure to check out the Art of Manliness website at artofmanliness.com. And if you enjoy the
00:54:40.680
show, you've gotten something out of it, I'd appreciate it if you give us a review on iTunes
00:54:44.000
or Stitcher. That helps out a lot. And if you've done that already, thank you. Please consider sharing
00:54:48.040
the show with a friend or family member who you think would get something out of it. As always,
00:54:51.540
thank you for your continued support. And until next time, this is Brett McKay telling you to stay