The "Make Time" Framework
Make Time is a framework that can help you create more time for the things you find important, in 4 steps, repeated every day:
- Highlight: Pick a single activity to prioritize in your schedule.
- Laser: Use certain tactics to stay laser-focused on your priority.
- Energize: Charge your battery with exercise, food, sleep and quiet time.
- Reflect: Adjust and improve your system.
MORE IDEAS FROM THE BOOK
Take control of your time by choosing where you direct your attention. And your daily Highlight is the target of that attention.
Principles for picking your Highlight:
- Urgency. Think about the most pressing thing you have to do today.
- Satisfaction. Ask yourself which Highlight will give you the most satisfaction.
- Joy. Ask yourself: When I reflect on today, what will bring me the most joy?
- Write down your highlight of the day. Put it in a visible place, to create a visual reminder.
- Trust your gut to decide whether an urgent, joyful, or satisfying Highlight is best for today.
- Repeat to build momentum and create a habit.
- Choose the same Highlight for several days in a row.
- Schedule your Highlight in your the calendar and block time for it.
- Highlights should take 60-90 minutes.
Laser mode happens when your attention is truly focused on the present: you’re in the flow, meaning you are fully engaged, and immersed in the moment.
The key to getting into Laser mode and focusing on your Highlight is to defeat distraction. To do that, make distraction hard to access. When distractions are not accessible, you don’t have to worry about willpower.
- No notifications; leave only the really critical and useful ones enabled.
- Log out when you're done with an app, and keep a clean Homescreen.
- Stay out of Infinity Pools: don’t reach for your phone first thing in the morning, read the news weekly, not daily, put a timer on your internet use, and remind yourself what are your real priorities.
- Deal with email at the end of the day or have a designated time in your day just for that; answer messages in batch.
When you don’t take care of your body, your brain can’t do its job.
- Exercise every day: Go small and go every day.
- Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.
- Optimize your caffeine intake.
- Take breaks without screens and go outside.
- Be present in the moment (eat without watching TV, for example).
- Remove all electronic devices to transform your bedroom into a true sanctuary for sleep.
- Observe what’s going on.
- Guess why things are happening the way they are.
- Experiment to test your hypothesis.
- Measure the results and decide whether you were right.
Take time for daily reflection: did you made time for your Highlight? How well you were able to focus on it? If you fail at first, don’t be hard on yourself when you fail. Use your notes to Give it time and use the notes improve your process.
RELATED IDEAS
The cue triggers a craving, which motivates a response, which provides a reward, which satisfies the craving and, ultimately, becomes associated with the cue.
Together, these four steps form a neurological feedback loop—cue, craving, response, reward; cue, craving, response, reward—that ultimately allows you to create automatic habits.