How to Focus on What Matters Every Day
Buy book - Make Time by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky
What is the subject of the Make Time book?
Make Time (2018) makes the apparently unattainable appear feasible, and then delivers on its promises. These tips will assist you in doing just what the title suggests: gaining more time for yourself. Of course, there are only so many hours in a day, and you can't make up for lost time by creating more. In exchange for their incisive diagnosis of how and why you lose your time to busyness and distractions, they offer a highly personalized plan and an abundant buffet of practical techniques for recovering your time, enabling you to spend more time doing the things you really like in life.
Who is the target audience for the Make Time book?
- Professionals who are stressed out as a result of the hectic pace of contemporary life
- The majority of users of social media and smartphones believe that their gadgets and applications own them, rather than the other way around.
- Quarter-life crisis, mid-life crisis, and late-life crisis sufferers who feel their lives are slipping away in a flurry of activity and distraction
Who are Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky, and what do they do?
Previously employed IT sector insiders Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky utilized the approach and techniques described in these notes to reclaim their lives and devote time to their real interests, which eventually resulted in significant changes in their professional paths.
John worked at Google for 10 years, where he was a key contributor to the development of Gmail and Google Hangouts. Jake has worked as a designer for technology firms such as YouTube for about 15 years. They met while working at Google Ventures, where they created a design methodology that they revealed in their New York Times bestseller book Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days. They are married and have two children. Their careers have advanced to the point where they are both professional writers, and John spends a significant portion of his year pursuing his passion for long-distance sailing.
What exactly is in it for me? Reclaim your time from the snares of activities and distractions, so that you may devote it to the things that matter to you.
When it comes to contemporary living, it may often seem as if there are never enough hours in the day to get everything done that we want to accomplish. Ultimately, however, if we are honest with ourselves, we will see that the culprit is not just the contemporary world, but also ourselves. We have a tendency to overcommit ourselves and get overworked. We then spend the remainder of our day hooked on social media, television, and email after we've finished being busy! The answer, it would seem, is straightforward: we must quit being busier than we need to be and avoid the distractions that are sapping our energy and stealing our time. Of course, saying these things is far simpler than really doing them. Identifying the root reasons for busyness and distraction will be critical to having a realistic chance at completing them successfully. After that, we must put in place a plan to deal with them. We'll need some actual strategies in order to put that plan into action.
Within these notes, we'll examine why we're so busy and distracted, why productivity and willpower alone aren't enough to address the issue and how to create a four-step plan to reclaim our time and productivity. When it comes time to put that plan into action, we'll look at a sample of 20 of the authors' 87 time-saving techniques, which you may utilize to develop your own customized approach to reclaiming your life. It is explained in these notes how to identify and combat the dynamic duo of time-wasting super villains known as the Busy Bandwagon and the Infinity Pool; why striving to be more productive can feel like running faster on a hamster wheel; and an ingenious technique for staying away from caffeine crashes.
We lose track of time as a result of our activities and diversions.
Why do we get the impression that there is never enough time to accomplish the things we truly want to achieve in our lives? The simplest explanation would seem to be that there is just too much to do on any given day - too many emails to respond to, too many meetings to attend, and too many Facebook postings to keep up with to mention. However, this is only partly correct. The whole reality is that our lack of time is, to a certain degree, a result of our own choices. There are two phenomena at play in this situation. The first is the Busy Bandwagon, as the name suggests. This is the contemporary mentality that tells us that we must cram as much work as possible into each and every minute of the day to be successful. It pushes us to be continuously productive, which results in overcrowded inboxes, jam-packed schedules, and never-ending to-do lists on our phones and computers.
The second phenomenon is the increase in the number of Infinity Pools being built. Most likely, unless you've been living in a secret subterranean bunker for the last decade, you're already acquainted with the following terms. Consider social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Netflix, and news websites. With a single touch or click of the mouse, they are basically unlimited, inexhaustible, and constantly-replenishing sources of materials – whether it be knowledge, entertainment, or a combination of the two.
As anybody who has met one of these Infinity Pools will attest, they can be significant time-wasteters — and the statistics support this. On average, we spend four hours per day watching television and another four hours per day looking at our cellphones, which is the equivalent of doing a full-time job. Consider the added stress of that second job on top of our regular full-time employment, which is already busy enough as it is, and which often spills over into our non-working hours as a result of the Busy Bandwagon. It's quite obvious where all of the time goes, isn't it?
It becomes worse when you consider that the Busy Bandwagon and Infinity Pools have teamed together to form a time-destroying tag-teaming combo of their own. Being exhausted from riding the busy bandwagon, we are readily tempted to jump into the Infinity Pools and passively absorb the information they have to offer. As a consequence, we are burdened with an infinite number of duties and diversions, bouncing back and forth between the two all day long - day in and day out. So the issue is, how can we get out of this situation? That is, after all, what the remainder of these notes are all about! First, we'll take a look at what you should avoid doing. After that, we'll figure out what to do.
Productivity on its own does nothing except increase the amount of time spent being busy.
As the Busy Bandwagon careens along the highway of contemporary life, it is trailed by a slew of gurus peddling different organizing systems, each promising you a more efficient method of getting your job completed. The reasoning for these systems is based on a very straightforward formula. You have a specific amount of work to do; let's call it X in this case. If an X amount of work consumes all of your available time, the answer seems to be straightforward: work X quicker in order to have more free time! Unfortunately, since X is a variable rather than a constant, things aren't quite as straightforward. Today's always-demanding world has an infinite succession of jobs we might be performing at any one time, so as soon as you complete one duty, it is immediately replaced by another, and so on and so forth. After you have cleared out your inbox, another email arrives. You respond to one request, and then another comes in from a coworker.
As a result, you may work your way through your to-do list as fast as possible in the hopes of reaching the elusive finish line, but the ink on your final check mark will barely have time to dry before another item appears on the list. The more you accomplish, the more you discover that has to be done. It's similar to chasing a carrot on a hamster wheel in a rat race. You may run faster and faster, but you will never be able to reach them, since the wheel will continue to spin at the same speed as you. As a result, increased production leads to increased activity. It also serves to reinforce the mindset that led you to get on the "busy" bandwagon in the first place. Not only are you setting yourself up for failure by assigning yourself an unrealistic goal, but you're also elevating the status of busyness in your life as a result of your excessive emphasis on getting everything done on time.
Added to that, you're placing yourself last on the priority list. Consider where the items on your to-do list originate in order to understand why. Are these things that you would choose to undertake if you were given the opportunity to do so? No, not in the majority of cases. They are things that have been forced on you by others. They are not your priorities; they are the priorities of others. You are deprioritizing yourself by putting others over yourself. As a result of devoting your time and energy to other people's goals, you find yourself with less time and energy for your own interests and initiatives. It is inevitable that you will put things off until "another day," which will never arrive. Being exhausted from racing on the hamster wheel of productivity and making no more progress toward your real calling will make you particularly vulnerable to slipping into the Infinity Pools of distraction, which we'll discuss next in more detail.
Willpower alone will not be enough to keep us from being distracted.
Instead of being trapped in an Infinity Pool of distractions, such as Facebook or Twitter, couldn't you simply avoid entering the pool altogether in the first place? Put your determination to work and just say no. It is unfortunate that the concept of "simply saying no" is a pipe dream. Infinity Pools have been skillfully engineered to overcome your resistance and draw you into their seemingly limitless content and surroundings. The businesses who manufacture them have a strong interest in seeing that this happens. The more the number of times you use their applications, the more money they earn. Armies of brilliant, well-intentioned techies leap into action, using sophisticated data measuring methods to determine what catches your attention. It is far simpler to rebuild and relaunch an app than, say, a vehicle, which allows them to iterate through many versions of their app until they discover the one that is most attractive to their target audience.
But try not to become too enraged at them or at the CEOs of IT companies. They are just attempting to carry out their responsibilities, driven by a real passion for technology and the pressures of a hyper-competitive business. Instead, you may place the blame on your forefathers and foremothers. It is just taking advantage of the way our minds were evolutionarily programmed in ancient times that Infinity Pools exist. It was advantageous for us to be easily distracted back then. We were saved from being devoured by a saber-toothed tiger because they kept us on the alert for unexpected changes in our surroundings, such as a rustling bush. Because we lived in close-knit tribes back then, it benefited us to be intrigued by tales, gossip, and social status, which allowed us to learn from one another, stay up to date with tribal news, and understand our position in the tribal pecking order, among other things.
Finally, since going out to kill mastodons or collect berries means never knowing precisely when or where you may get lucky, our brains have evolved to be driven by the possibility of receiving unexpected rewards. That way, even if a specific valley or clump of bushes turned out to be devoid of mastodons or berries, we could continue our hunt for sustenance. These predispositions were very useful for us at the time. These distractions make us vulnerable to phone notifications that pique our interest, clickbait headlines that entice us with stories, tweets that spread gossip, Instagram follower counts that quantify our social status, and endless Facebook feeds that promise the unpredictable rewards of interesting links hidden among boring posts. With the combination of expertly-designed applications and brains that have been molded by ancient circumstances, we will not be able to resist through our willpower alone. We need plans and techniques, which we will discuss in more detail later!
You must alter the default settings of your behavior if you want to overcome the effects of activities and diversions.
If willpower alone isn't enough to overcome Infinity Pools, and if productivity just serves to strengthen the Busy Bandwagon's grip on us, what can we do to break free from their grasp? As with defeating a supervillain, the solution rests in finding the ultimate source of their superpower and removing it from their possession. In a nutshell, the root of the problem may be stated as follows: reactivity. Infinity Pools and the Busy Bandwagon draw their strength from our ability to respond to environmental stimuli without thinking about what we're doing. It is your professional obligation to reply to an email from a colleague who has asked you a question right away. The screen of your phone flashes with a notification, and you feel driven to glance at it.
You do these things without even noticing that you are doing them — and that is exactly the issue. Riding the Busy Train and soaking in Infinity Pools have become our natural behavioral responses to the pressures of our work lives and the advancement of digital technology. Considering our brains as computers and our actions as programs, we might argue that unthinkingly reactive behaviors have taken the place of conscious decision-making in our lives. This is how we are already set up to react to the stimuli of demands and technology that we will experience throughout the day when we get up in the morning. As an example, when you first turn on your phone, it will send you specific notifications, display specific background images, and play specific ringtones. This is similar to how, when you first turn on your phone, it will default to sending you specific notifications, displaying specific backgrounds, and playing specific ringtones.
Those who know how to use a phone are also familiar with the process of reprogramming its basic settings to customize the alerts, wallpaper, and ringtones to suit their preferences. It is our intention in the following notes to discuss the process of reprogramming your own default settings in order to avoid becoming unconsciously reactive, which may lead to slipping into the traps of the Busy Bandwagon and the Infinity Pools. You may be wondering, at this point, where we are going with this. After all, if our default settings cause unmindful reactivity, then mindful proactivity is the solution.In the following note, we'll have a better understanding of what this is and how to develop it.
When it comes to changing your default settings, you'll need strategies and a plan to put up roadblocks between you and your time-wasting habits.
In Homer's Odyssey, Odysseus is confronted with his own version of the Infinity Pools: the Sirens, who threaten to drown him. Ships were drawn into the cliffs by their seductive vocals, which caused them to smash against the rocks where they sang. The Greek hero Odysseus was conscious of his own limits as he sailed toward them. He was well aware that he would not be able to withstand the sirens just on the strength of his resolve. As a result of his desire to hear the Sirens' melodies while also avoiding a collision with the rocks, Odysseus came up with a simple yet ingenious solution. As a proactive measure, he chained himself to the mast of his ship and ordered his crew members to put beeswax in their ears, preventing them from responding to the Sirens' call.
Simply said, thinking and doing like Odysseus is the easiest approach to describing how to be mindfully proactive. The Busy Bandwagon and Infinity Pools may be just as tempting as the Sirens when it comes to attracting attention. To avoid being lured in by their melodies or even hearing them in the first place, we may erect walls between ourselves and them, much like Odysseus did in the story of the Odyssey. There are several simple but effective strategies you may use to erect these barriers. We'll go into this in more detail later, but for now, consider the following example: Create a website blocker to keep yourself from succumbing to the temptation of browsing through Facebook! At this point, you may be thinking, "enough enough, just give me the strategy!" Hold on just a little longer, since it would be counterproductive to just offer a slew of ideas and techniques. This is due to the fact that strategies alone are not sufficient. You'll need a plan to keep them on track.
Because there is no one-size-fits-all set of techniques that will work for everyone, this is particularly true in this case. Each individual is unique, and you need a set of techniques that are tailored to the contours of your particular personality. The approach that follows will assist you in identifying the collection of strategies that are most effective for you. When broken down into its simplest terms, this approach is extremely straightforward and can be broken down into four easy steps: spotlight, focus, energize, and reflect. You may read about each of these stages in the following notes, and at the conclusion of them, you will be prepared to identify the strategies that can be used to escape the contemporary Sirens who tempt you into squandering your time and money.
Consider selecting an activity or project that will serve as the highlight of your day to help you stay focused on the here and now.
As you can see, just increasing one's productivity does not address the issue of being overburdened. In fact, since your to-do list is never-ending, it may exacerbate the situation by contributing to the "Busy Bandwagon" mentality. By assigning yourself more and more short-term duties, you will not be able to free up more time to accomplish the things that you truly want to be doing. In addition, trying to do as much as possible or neurotically managing your schedule in order to finish things as efficiently as possible will not provide results. But instead of doing so, you'll simply keep yourself busier, which will make your days pass more quickly and leave you tired by the time your job and chores are over - hardly ready to accomplish things like writing the book you've always wanted to write or spending meaningful time with your family.
If concentrating on the completion of short-term activities is not the answer, then maybe it is necessary to concentrate on long-term objectives. However, they are also of little assistance. Rather than being present in the now, they are absent from it, too preoccupied with the distant future. Now, none of this is intended to be a disincentive to creating to-do lists, creating calendars, completing chores, or setting objectives. Long-term objectives assist you in orienting your life's path. Making to-do lists, creating timetables, and setting short-term objectives can assist you in keeping track of your progress and completing tasks along the way. They are necessary, but they are insufficient to help you recover from your lost time loss.
In between your short-term and long-term objectives, there is a happy medium: A goal that you may concentrate on today, but that can also act as a guiding light as you navigate through the rest of your life. An everyday highlight is something that you can look back on with pride at the end of the day. It may be anything from a prolonged activity or project to something as simple as cleaning the house. If you've ever been asked this question, you're probably familiar with it: "What was the highlight of your day?" If you want to know what your day's highlight will be before the conclusion of the day, you may come up with a response ahead of time by modifying the question slightly: What do you want the highlight of your day to be? Of course, it's far simpler to pose the question than it is to provide a response. Following that, we'll look at several strategies for assisting ourselves in answering the question.
Choose a significant, gratifying, or happy highlight that may be completed in 60 to 90 minutes to commemorate the occasion.
Highlights are available in three basic flavors, similar to Neapolitan ice cream: significant, meaningful, and joyous. Because each requires a distinct method, we will go over them one by one. If you choose the first method, consider the following question: "What is the most urgent, absolutely essential task or project I am engaged in today?" Take a peek at your to-do list, your email inbox, or your schedule to identify these high points. Perhaps you have a client that is anticipating a proposal today, or perhaps your kid wants assistance with her Halloween costume tonight. Consider the following scenario: You have a ten-minute form to complete today. Finish the form, by all means, but don't make it the highlight of your day! You want anything that takes between 60 and 90 minutes to complete as a highlight. Shorter activities don't allow you to spend enough time getting into the zone. You are unlikely to be able to maintain your concentration for extended periods of time.
The second method is to ask yourself, "what will make me feel the most pleased at the end of the day?". Not what you are required to do, but what you want to do, is the focus of this discussion. These are the kind of projects that are ideal candidates for this sort of spotlight since they are not time-sensitive and can be completed in a reasonable amount of time. You'll typically receive this pleasure from anything that either provides an outlet for a talent you'd want to develop or allows you to achieve something that's important to you personally. For example, maybe you have a long-standing passion project at work that you have been dying to get started, or perhaps you want to investigate possible holiday locations that you have been thinking about.
Another method is to ask yourself, "What will offer me the greatest joy?" as the third question. Being less unmindfully reactive and more consciously proactive is not about creating some kind of perfectly planned day with a goal-obsessed mindset; rather, it is about living a more fulfilling and happy life. In order to live that life, you must sometimes let go and do something just because you love doing it, whether it's learning how to play a new song on the guitar or reading a novel. Whatever you want to accomplish, give yourself permission to go ahead and do it! So there you have it: three different kinds of highlights, each with their own style. Which one are you going to choose? Every day, you should follow your instincts and pick the option that seems most natural to you.
Experiment with several strategies to assist you in selecting your highlights.
It's possible that you'll still need help with selecting your highlights. Immediately after, we'll have a look at some possibly beneficial approaches. But first, let's go through some suggestions on how to put them into action. In a word, avoid attempting to implement all of these strategies at the same time. You will get overwhelmed and will most likely quit up. This is because there are far too many strategies to complete in a single sitting!Furthermore, you are not required to complete all of them; rather, you are just required to experiment with a few of them. Examine which ones are effective and which ones are ineffective for you, then retain the ones that are effective and discard the others. Let's move on to our initial set of tactical considerations. Some of them are self-explanatory, so we'll simply skim over them for the sake of expediency. Others will be looked at in more depth.
One strategy for identifying your highlights is to make a list of your priorities and then rank them in order to remind yourself which one is the most important to focus on. "How can I go about pursuing this today?" you may wonder. If you're divided between two possible highlights, you may utilize your ranked list to decide which one is the most important. Another strategy is to repeat yesterday's highlight if you didn't get to it, didn't complete it, want to learn a new skill or habit, or just liked it so much that you want to do it again.
You may also combine a number of little, annoying jobs into a single large composite task in the third place. There are two advantages to using this strategy. First and foremost, it provides you with the pleasure of having completed chores that have been weighing on your mind. Second, by instilling confidence in you that you'll get around to them eventually, these non-urgent activities may accumulate without continuously competing for your attention, putting a halt to the Busy Bandwagon's momentum. Another strategy is to look at your to-do list and do the job that is most important to you at the time. Finally, if you have a highlight that is a lengthier project, you can break it down into stages and tie those parts together to create a multi-day feature. It is hoped that you will have a high point at the conclusion of one of these strategies. Now it's time to put the plan into action, which is the topic of the next note.
Make use of time management strategies to ensure that you have enough time for your highlights.
Having a goal that is neither too little nor too large and declaring that "today, this will be the highlight of my day" is one thing; having a goal that is neither too small nor too large is quite another. But it's another thing entirely to get around to doing it. You must schedule time for your highlights in order to do this. Here are some strategies that may be of assistance. You may make an estimate of how long it will take you to complete your highlights and plan them for your day. Consider going a step further and scheduling regular times on your calendar for high-level tasks.Alternatively, take it a step further and create a comprehensive plan for your day - maybe even half hour by half hour, including basic tasks like "drinking coffee" in the appropriate slots. This may enable you to squeeze as much time as possible out of your day – just make sure you include your highlights in addition to your duties!
Alternatively, if possible, rearrange or cancel your obligations to free up some time on your calendar.If you rearrange certain meetings, you may find that you have gained a surprising amount of time. Finally, if you want to reclaim time for yourself at the start or end of each day, you might either learn to be a morning person or become a more successful night person. That implies someone who doesn't simply start wasting time on social media sites like Facebook or YouTube as the clock strikes twelve.
These last two strategies are more difficult to implement than they seem. Therefore, some more guidance is required. In order to develop the habit of rising early in the morning, it is beneficial to use light to recreate the circumstances of our ancestors' lives – falling asleep at sunset and waking up with the dawn.Alternatively, lower the lights in your house a couple of hours before bedtime, set your screen gadgets to night mode, and turn them off as you enter your bedroom to have the same effect. It is important to obtain enough sleep the night before to avoid waking up early the following day, which you may make easier by supplying yourself with enough light the night before. Fortunately, a dawn simulator can do this, which is a gadget that progressively bathes you in stronger and brighter light throughout the morning.
If you want to become a more successful night owl, consider scheduling time for your activities in the late evening or early morning. Before the time comes, do something to replenish your batteries, and then, when it's time for the main event, turn off your social media accounts to ensure that you remain focused. How do you recharge your batteries, remain connected to the internet, and maintain your concentration? We'll take a look at it next.
Take advantage of strategies to keep distractions at bay and to remain focused on your highlights.
Now that we've seen some strategies for finding time for our highlights, let's take a look at some strategies for remaining focused on them, avoiding distractions, and really making use of the time we've set out. First and foremost, you may remove Infinity Pool-related smartphone applications such as Twitter and Facebook. No need to fret; your GPS, music, and other essential applications will remain accessible. - - You may even remove the email application from your phone if you want to go the extra mile. This may seem absurd, but consider this: how often do you really compose an email reply on your phone, with its little and inconvenient keyboard? Probably not on a regular basis. The majority of the time, your email app serves just as an anxiety-inducing notification app. So, make an effort to get rid of it. Alternatively, you may install software and website blocking tools on your computer to restrict the amount of time you can spend on social media or email on your device.
You may also attempt a more moderate approach, such as by logging out of any social networking accounts you may have. In this manner, whenever you have the need to check them, you won't have to remember to input your login details. You will be discouraged from using social media in an unnecessary manner as a result of the minor inconvenience, and you will have an opportunity to pause and consider whether you really want to spend your time in this manner.
In addition, rather than keeping up with the news on a daily or even hourly basis, you may catch up on it once a week if you like. Yes, you will be a bit out of the loop for a short while. However, how much of the information you get from the news is relevant to the choices you must make at the present moment is debatable. Isn't it possible to postpone most of it for a week?Some of it is really life-threatening, but you will almost certainly hear about these tales in some form or another, whether it is over the water cooler or in a text message alert alerting you that the volcano is ready to erupt.
Furthermore, when you have a random, transient inquiry, such as "who's that actress on that TV show?" or "what's the name of that TV show?" Instead of instantly Googling anything, jot it down on a piece of paper and put it somewhere safe for later. As a result, you will be able to avoid falling down the Google rabbit hole of one follow-up inquiry after another, while simultaneously remaining certain that you will have time to do your very "essential" studies later on. In the hopes that some of these strategies will help you stay focused, keep in mind that even if they do, they will be of little use if you are too exhausted to take advantage of the time they make available.The next section discusses how to stay energetic throughout the day.
Take good care of your body in order to maintain your mental energy.
In today's society, individuals often behave as if the mind and the body are different entities, as if the body's only function is to transport the mind from place to place. In the meantime, you occupy your time mainly with mental activities associated with modern living, such as navigating computer monitors. Of course, anybody with a physical body is well aware that this is not the case. It is possible to see the link between the mind and the body firsthand, whether you feel mentally fatigued after eating too much food or mentally energized after an exercise session. As a result, it is obvious that caring for one necessitates caring for the other. If you want an energetic mind, you must take care of your body - but how can you do that? There is a plethora of contradictory advice available. What is the best way to sift through it all?
Fortunately, the majority of the information you'll need is straightforward and comes directly from the prehistoric period of human evolution. The way we live today is influenced by some simple but important factors from our ancestors' lifestyles: a varied and sparse diet, sleep patterns that reflect the rhythm of the day, plenty of social interaction, and nearly constant low-key movement such as walking, punctuated by bursts of more intense activity such as lifting heavy objects, to name a few. That was the way people lived for 188,000 of their 200,000 years on Earth, from the beginning of the agricultural revolution about 12,000 years ago until the present day. Despite the fact that humans are still designed for all of the activities listed above, the default settings of contemporary life no longer promote them. The alternative is to lounge about and watch screens, consume processed foods and cram in as much sleep time as possible.
Lifestyles have become out of sync with physical requirements as a result, and bodies – and, therefore, minds – are suffering the repercussions, which are significant in their scope. Aside from the obvious health concerns, being low on energy makes you more prone to being sidetracked and wasting time, while being energetic makes you feel ready to handle almost any task. Taking care of your body requires returning to the principles that underpin our ancestors' way of life while still maintaining the advantages of contemporary living, which is the secret to good health. No, this isn't about adopting a strict paleo diet or anything like that; rather, it's about bringing your evolutionarily-shaped requirements more in line with your societally-shaped habits. The next section discusses various strategies that may assist you in accomplishing this goal.
Make use of strategies to re-energize both your mind and your body.
Similar to how our ancient forefathers managed their lives, the strategies for taking care of our brains and bodies may be divided into four categories: exercise, food, social interaction, and sleep. For each of them, we'll look at one or two different strategies. Remember that we don't have to participate in a triathlon or anything else severe to get some exercise. Simple everyday activities such as jogging or swimming for 20 minutes have been scientifically shown to offer significant advantages for our cognitive skills, emotions, and general health. When time is of the essence, we don't even need to spend the whole 20 minutes. The results of a recent study indicate that seven minutes of high-intensity interval training may provide us with even larger advantages than an hour of moderate exercise. Sprints, push-ups, pull-ups, squats, and weightlifting may all be done in 5 to 10 minutes, providing a re-energizing exercise that will leave you feeling great.
When it comes to nutrition, we consume genuine food in moderation, just as our forefathers did: vegetables, nuts, fish, and meat. Serving sizes may be reduced without the person feeling deprived by following this easy trick: Place the salad on your dish first, in the center of the platter. After that, arrange the remainder of the meal around it. In this manner, the whole dish will be full, but the majority of it will be made up of greens. Additionally, caffeine crashes may have a negative impact on our energy levels. If you want to prevent them, consider re-caffeinating around 30 minutes before a crash, which is usually just after lunch. If we wait until we've already crashed, it'll be too late to save ourselves. It's a bit difficult to explain the molecular principles at work here, but the basic line is that we need to supplement the old caffeine with fresh caffeine before an army of drowsiness-inducing chemicals known as adenosine can rush in and take control of the brain.
When it comes to sleep, resist the urge to make up for lost time. This causes our internal clock to malfunction, which in turn causes our sleep pattern to be disrupted. Make a commitment to yourself. Wake up at the same hour every day — even on weekends – and stick to it. Remember that, like our ancient forefathers, who lived in tiny, close-knit tribes, we have an inherent desire to socialize, which is why we are drawn to other people. Nowadays, our "tribe" is comprised of our friends, coworkers, and extended family members. It is possible to satisfy our desire for connection by spending time with any of these individuals – but some of them are particularly adept at boosting our moods. Spend quality time with these individuals in particular.
Or, even better, sit down with them and eat a nutritious meal together — while leaving the phones at home.Multiple objectives may be achieved at the same time, such as connecting with our tribe, eating properly, avoiding Infinity Pools, and getting off the Busy Bandwagon, to name a few.
Consider the outcome of putting these strategies to the test.
There are a total of 20 strategies included in this set of notes for executing the first three stages of the Make Time strategy: identify, concentrate, and energize. All of these strategies are worth experimenting with! You may feel a little overwhelmed with all of the options available. Even if you recall the suggestion to just try out one new technique at a time, you may still feel as if there is a lot you aren't getting around to. Here's a strategy for dealing with that sensation. The strategies should be seen as recipes in a cookbook, and the first three stages of the strategy should be viewed as breakfast, lunch, and supper. You may only experiment with one dish for each meal per day, at the most. In the same way that you wouldn't feel obligated to make your way through a whole cookbook, you shouldn't feel obligated to use these techniques.
The purpose of a cookbook is simply to provide you with a variety of choices to try. You may select and choose the ones that are most appropriate for your requirements. You put them through their paces, taste the results, and decide where to proceed from there. The same may be said of the "recipes" that are given by these approaches. The goal is simple: to determine which ones are the best for you. Thus, try them out and then record, evaluate, and report your findings. To do this, just set aside a few minutes every day to reflect on your high points, whether you made time for them, which strategies you employed, what worked and what didn't for them, what improvements you could make, and which tactics you'll use the following day to achieve your goals. The last stage of the Make Time method is to schedule time for yourself.
You may also evaluate your level of concentration and energy on a scale from 1 to 10, which will help you keep track of how you're doing. And, to have a good attitude during the process, you may jot down a memory of something for which you are thankful. You will be more sensitive to any good events that may occur in your life as a result of this. If all goes according to plan, these advances will be significant. They will free up more time, energy, and concentration for you to devote to the activities, initiatives, and people that are most important to you. You may even rekindle an old passion or find a new one as a result of freeing yourself up to follow your interests. Perhaps you will be able to pursue your professional goals with fresh energy. It's possible that one of your pursuits or interests may develop into a whole new vocation.
That is precisely what occurred in the case of the writers. One of them decided to leave Google in order to pursue a writing career. The other quit YouTube to pursue a career in sailboat racing. What is the final destination of your journey?To discover it, there is only one way to find out, and that is to get started!
Make Time concludes with a final summation.
The essential point in these notes is that the Busy Bandwagon and Infinity Pools are the primary reasons we feel like we never have enough time: the attitude that promotes activity for its own purpose and the applications that keep us occupied with limitless communication and entertainment. In order to combat these two opposing forces of time waste, productivity and determination alone are insufficient. Instead, we must adopt a conscious and proactive approach to dealing with them. In order to do this, you may use a number of strategies to execute a four-step approach that includes selecting a daily highlight, concentrating on it, recharging your batteries, and commenting on the outcomes. Actionable advice: Begin executing this approach as soon as possible. Revisit these notes, choose one technique for each of the first three stages, and begin selecting a highlight, concentrating on it, and energizing yourself right now.
Buy book - Make Time by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky
Written by BrookPad Team based on Make Time by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky