By Jessica Searcy Kmetty
Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky is a pretty quick read that is packed with great ideas. It’s all about being intentional and not allowing things you may do by default to hijack your productive time.
The authors provide abundant details, tips and tricks to help you pick and choose what strategies you might utilize in your own life. It also includes a multitude of good ideas we should all probably be doing a better job of: exercise, drink water, watch less TV, get good sleep, etc.
Their Amazon summary reads, “Making time isn't about radically overhauling your lifestyle; it's about making small shifts in your environment to liberate yourself from constant busyness and distraction.”
I read this book during the heat of July in Phoenix, in the pool, with a frozen drink in hand. It wasn’t overly complex like many productivity books are. It was short, with power packed tactics, offering real-world examples and the authors would often explain their own approaches to the same topic, which I found helpful because there’s more than one way to do almost anything. With more than 85 tactics presented, you can pick the ones that speak to you!
Amazon also states, “Make Time is not a one-size-fits-all formula. Instead, it offers a customizable menu of bite-size tips and strategies that can be tailored to individual habits and lifestyles.”
The chapter on being the boss of your iPhone is amazing. While I can’t (or perhaps won’t?) try many of their more extreme suggestions, I did modify and put limits on things that are “infinity pools” like Facebook. I dropped them onto my 3rd screen rather than my home screen, turned off their notifications, and set time limits.
This one act keeps me from logging into social media on auto-pilot, without thinking, and saves me from wasting time when I pick up my phone but can’t remember why.
I did the same thing with email, moving it to the 3rd screen and turning off alerts, and installed an app called Compose by Cluster Labs so that I can send myself ideas rather than opening my inbox and being pulled down the rabbit hole. Now, instead of hitting my alarm and checking my email/social media first thing in the morning, I start my day off with intention.
Don’t want to read the whole book? Just commit to a “quick start” by scheduling your highlight (tactic 8), block distractions (tactic 24), and pound the pavement (tactic 62). Then reflect every evening for three days on how those three tactics are impacting you. See what you learn and take it from there!
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Published for the blog on January 6, 2021 by Searcy Financial Services, your Overland Park, Kansas Fee-Only Financial Planner and Investment Manager.
