Make Time summary

by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky · 2018 · 6 key ideas · 14-minute read

Pick one daily Highlight, use tactics to stay focused on it, keep your energy up, and reflect each evening, experimenting until you find what works for you.

Why read it

For people who don't want a rigid system but a flexible menu of tactics to try. It's light, friendly and built on a simple four-step daily routine.

Make Time in brief

Knapp and Zeratsky describe two forces that eat our days. The Busy Bandwagon is the culture of constant busyness: full inboxes, packed calendars, the pressure to be productive at all times. Infinity Pools are apps and media with endless content, from social feeds to news, that we can keep scrolling forever. Together they leave little time for what we really care about.

Their answer isn't a strict system but a simple daily framework with four steps. Highlight: choose one thing to prioritise each day. Laser: beat distraction to make time for it. Energize: use body and lifestyle to recharge your mind. Reflect: take notes each evening to see what worked.

Around this they offer dozens of small tactics, from making your phone distraction-free to scheduling your Highlight in the calendar to rethinking caffeine. The idea is to experiment like a scientist: try a few tactics, observe the results, keep what works and drop what doesn't.

The authors stress that Make Time isn't about doing more or being efficient. It's about creating time and attention for the things that matter to you, whether that's a project at work, time with your kids or learning the guitar.

The 6 key ideas

1. Busy Bandwagon and Infinity Pools

Change the default, change the day.

2. Choose a daily Highlight

One Highlight a day makes a day worth remembering.

3. Schedule and protect it

If it's not in the calendar, it's a wish.

4. Laser: make your phone boring

A boring phone gives you an interesting life.

5. Energize like a caveman

Feed the body, and the mind can focus.

6. Reflect and experiment

Try it, track it, keep what works.

Key takeaways

• Pick one Highlight each morning using urgency, satisfaction or joy.
• Schedule the Highlight in your calendar and move it rather than drop it.
• Delete infinity pool apps from your phone for at least a week.
• Look after energy with daily movement, real food and sleep.
• Reflect for a few minutes each evening and adjust your tactics.

Our take

Make Time is friendly, flexible and practical: its daily Highlight and distraction-free phone tactics are easy to try and often stick. Its experimental approach respects that people differ. On the downside, many tactics are light on evidence and some, like nutrition and caffeine tips, are personal preference presented with confidence. It's also written from the viewpoint of people with considerable control over their schedules. Readers wanting depth on the psychology of focus may prefer Deep Work or Indistractable, but as an accessible starting kit, it works well.

About Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky

Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky are designers who worked at Google and then at the venture capital firm GV, where they helped develop the 'design sprint' process described in Knapp's book Sprint.

If you liked this

• Deep Work by Cal Newport
• Indistractable by Nir Eyal
• Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport
• Atomic Habits by James Clear
• The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey