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My Favourite Productivity Book of All Time

2020-06-23 · Book summary (Book Club) · Ali, John Zeratsky · recording, 12:44 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Productivity and time (also: Health, sleep and habits) · mode: Explanation and tutorial · tags: Lesson from a book, Sponsor segment present

In the third Book Club episode Ali summarises Make Time by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky: the busy bandwagon and infinity pools, and the daily four-step framework of highlight, laser, energise and reflect, with the tactics he adopted and clips of his interview with Zeratsky, who urges people to design their own system.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Making time for what matters; Book Club episode three on Make Time

  • ★★ This video is the third episode of Book Club, Ali's series summarising key ideas of his favourite books, on Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky. — 00:00:00 · Book Club

00:00:29 — Why life is so busy: the busy bandwagon, infinity pools, and habits beating willpower

  • ★★ Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky both worked at Google designing products such as Gmail, YouTube and Google Hangouts, which Ali says gives them insight into why such services are so compelling and how to keep them from taking over our lives. — 00:00:29 · Google, YouTube
  • ★★ Make Time presents a four-part framework for focusing on what matters most, with 87 tactics spread across its four parts. — 00:00:29
  • ★★★ One main premise of Make Time, Ali says, is that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to productivity: you look through the book, understand the framework and pick the tactics that work for you. — 00:00:58
  • ★★ Make Time names two main reasons life is so busy: the busy bandwagon and infinity pools. — 00:00:58
  • ★★ The busy bandwagon, in Make Time, is the idea that being busy is a badge of honour. — 00:00:58
  • ★★ Ali says he is guilty of the busy bandwagon: even on a break he feels a little guilty for not doing something "useful", fearing he will fall behind if he slows down and that it will all come crashing down unless he keeps going at full speed. — 00:01:27
  • ★★ Infinity pools, in Make Time, are the apps, services and websites with an endless, always refreshing supply of content that you can jump back into at any time. — 00:01:27
  • ★ John Zeratsky says Make Time calls such an app "distraction kryptonite": as kryptonite renders Superman powerless, the app leaves us powerless to resist it. — 00:01:57
  • ★★ In Make Time's terms, the busy bandwagon defaults to endless tasks and infinity pools default to endless distraction. — 00:01:57
  • ★★★ John Zeratsky says using distracting apps becomes a habit rather than an active decision, so willpower cannot counteract it; in habits versus willpower, habits win. — 00:02:22

00:02:51 — The four-part framework, written as a cookbook of tactics

  • ★★ Because habits beat willpower, Ali says, we need a system to build productive habits around: Make Time's four steps repeated every day, highlight, laser, energise and reflect. — 00:02:51
  • ★★ John Zeratsky says he and Jake Knapp wrote Make Time as a cookbook rather than a single step-by-step recipe, with many recipes to use depending on what clicks for each reader. — 00:02:51
  • ★★ John Zeratsky says the authors do not care which tactics people use, from Make Time or elsewhere: if the tactics fit the book's four-step framework, people will be successful. — 00:03:21

00:03:50 — Step 1, Highlight: choosing and protecting one daily highlight

  • ★★★ Make Time's highlight hypothesis predicts that setting a single intention at the start of each day will make you more satisfied, joyful and effective; each day you choose one activity to prioritise and protect in your calendar. — 00:03:50 · daily highlight
  • ★★ A daily highlight can be anything, such as finishing a piece of work, a workout or a walk: it is not the only thing done that day, but the one thing you definitely make time for. — 00:03:50 · daily highlight
  • ★★ John Zeratsky (quoted): In Make Time, Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky write that a daily highlight stops the tug of war between infinity pools and the busy bandwagon and reveals a third path: being intentional and focused about how you spend your time. — 00:04:19 · daily highlight
  • ★★★ Since reading Make Time a few months ago, Ali sets himself a daily highlight every single day and always makes sure he does it, whatever else is on his to-do list. — 00:04:19 · daily highlight
  • ★★ John Zeratsky (quoted): Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky suggest that anyone struggling to pick a daily highlight think of it in one of three ways: urgency, satisfaction or joy. — 00:04:48 · daily highlight
  • ★ Make Time gives seven tactics for choosing a daily highlight, plus many methods for making time for it. — 00:04:48 · daily highlight
  • ★★★ Each morning, in his daily check-in on Notion or on paper, Ali writes a little H for his highlight of the day, then plans when to do it, for example between 2 and 4 p.m. — 00:04:48 · daily highlight, Notion

00:05:17 — Step 2, Laser: barriers against distraction and the tactics Ali adopted

  • ★★ Make Time's laser hypothesis: creating barriers around the busy bandwagon and infinity pools lets you focus your attention like a laser beam; if the highlight is offence, laser is defence. — 00:05:17
  • ★★★ John Zeratsky says his and Jake Knapp's background as tech designers lets them explain why apps are distracting, so people can cut off those mechanisms and break habit loops without using willpower to resist checking. — 00:05:47
  • ★★ John Zeratsky (quoted): Make Time says that when distraction is hard to access you don't have to worry about willpower and can channel your energy into making time instead of wasting it. — 00:06:16
  • ★★★ Because devices and the instant gratification of infinity pools will distract us, Ali says, we need to ramp up the friction so they are physically harder to use. — 00:06:16 · friction
  • ★ Make Time has 44 tactics to pick from for managing distractions in the laser step. — 00:06:16
  • ★★ Ali has started using six Make Time tactics that were new to him: 23 skip the morning check-in, 30 watch out for time craters, 32 turn distractions into tools, 39 reset expectations, 50 explode your highlight, and 60 go all in. — 00:06:45
  • ★★ Ali recommends getting a copy of Make Time, calling it a very good book. — 00:06:45
  • ★★ Ali's two-hour uncut deep-dive interview with John Zeratsky, discussing many Make Time tactics in depth, is available on Nebula. — 00:06:45 · Nebula, Deep Dive

00:07:14 — Nebula's bite-size series and the CuriosityStream sponsor read

  • ★★ Ali and his team have started cutting his deep-dive interviews into bite-sized chunks for a new bite-size series on Nebula. — 00:07:14 · Nebula, Deep Dive
  • ★★ Make Time's energise hypothesis: living a little more like a prehistoric human enhances your mental and physical energy. — 00:08:13

00:08:22 — Step 3, Energise: body and brain as one system, morning caffeine and faking the sunset

  • ★★★ John Zeratsky says that when the body is not well, from too little sleep or too much drink, the brain does not work, yet our culture does not encourage us to think of body and brain as one system; Make Time's energise step offers simple ways to look after yourself. — 00:08:42
  • ★★★ Ali says he pays energy less attention than he should: simply sleeping on time, eating well, drinking lots of water and exercising would probably boost his productivity more than discovering Roam Research, Notion or the latest app. (hedged) — 00:09:11 · Roam Research, Notion
  • ★★★ Ali used to drink coffee first thing on waking; Make Time's tactic 70 says the body's natural cortisol wakes us about an hour after we first wake, so caffeine should kick in then, keeping us awake longer. — 00:09:40
  • ★★ Make Time's tactic 84, "fake the sunset": our bodies are designed to fall asleep when light turns warm at sunset, but devices keep blue light glaring at us all the time. — 00:10:10
  • ★★★ After reading Make Time's "fake the sunset" tactic, Ali set the Philips Hue bulbs in his whole house to a warm glow and clips blue-light-blocking glasses onto his glasses a few hours before bed. — 00:10:10 · Philips Hue

00:10:39 — Step 4, Reflect: a daily reflection and Ali's Notion template

  • ★★★ John Zeratsky says Make Time's fourth step, reflect, might be the most important because it is often missing: looking back every day and noting what worked, the way to find which of the book's 87 recipes work for you. (hedged) — 00:10:39
  • ★★★ At the end of each day Ali does a daily reflection in Notion, with a template built from Make Time's sample template, input from his friend Valentine (as heard) and Matthew Dicks's book Storyworthy. — 00:11:08 · Notion
  • ★★ Ali says he will make a Book Club episode on Matthew Dicks's Storyworthy at some point in the future. — 00:11:08 · Book Club

00:11:37 — John Zeratsky's parting advice: make time your own

  • ★★★ John Zeratsky's parting advice: find a way to establish your own system, make experimenting a habit and believe your time, attention and energy are yours to design, since following someone else's steps will not make life perfect. — 00:11:37

    “your time and your attention and your energy are yours to design”

  • ★★★ Ali concludes that productivity is not about reading a book or watching a video and stopping there: we should all control our own time, and if we do not, understand a framework, experiment with techniques and make time our own. — 00:12:06

In the description and comments

  • ★★★ Ali calls Make Time his favourite productivity book of all time. — video title

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: busy bandwagon · daily highlight · infinity pools · John Zeratsky · Make Time

Also: People: Jake Knapp · Matthew Dicks

Projects: Book Club · Deep Dive

Works: Storyworthy

Organizations: CuriosityStream · Google · Nebula · YouTube

Concepts: friction

Products: Gmail · Notion · Philips Hue · Roam Research

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