“Shifting your focus to something that your mind perceives as a doable, completable task will create a real increase in positive energy, direction, and motivation.”

Use your body to recharge your brain.If you live a little more like a prehistoric human, you will enhance your mental and physical energy.Some tactics#61 Exercise every day (Don't Be a Hero)#67 Stay Hungry: Skip the Breakfast#72 Take a caffeine Nap#77 Get Woodsy: Get some times in the woods (or close to nature)#78 Trick yourself into Meditating: Just take a moment and feel your breaths and count them.

ENERGIZE

Busy Bandwagon: This is the illusion of endless tasks.Infinity Pools: Apps and other sources of endless (or infinity) replenishing contents. These are the endless distractions.These days 'BUSY' is just like a 'Badge of Honour' We are just trying to squeeze productivity into every minute of the day and forget to live more intentionally.

Busy Bangwagon & Infinite Pools

Adjust and Improve your system.Take note of those tactics that are working for you and those that aren't.Establish your own 'Make Time' System.

REFLECT

“Perfection is a distraction—another shiny object taking your attention away from your real priorities.”

"We don't remember every day, we remember moments."

3 types of HIGHLIGHTs<ol><li>Urgency: "What's the pressing thing I need to do today?"</li><li>Satisfaction: "At the end of the day what would give me more satisfaction?"</li><li>Joy: "When I reflect on my day, what experience will give me more joy?"</li></ol>Some highlight tactics -#1 Write it down#8 Schedule your highlight#14 Become a morning person / #15 Night-time is highlight-time.

HIGHLIGHT Tactics

#18 Log out - from all the social media sites, uncheck the 'remember me', reset the password to a strong one(like - gh#?56&95/g$), and write it down physically.#19 Nix Notifications#23 Skip the Morning Check-in#24 Block Distraction Kryptonite: The weak point of you which can't resist (just like Kryptonite is the weak point of Superman).#38 Be Slow to Response# 51 Play a Laser Sound Track - a favorite soundtrack of you - will help to get into focus easily.# 55 Make a Random Question List.

LASER Tactics

"Do not ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have came alive."

_"You only waste time if you’re not intentional about how you spend it.” _

If you create barriers around Busy Bandwagon and Infinity pools, then you will focus your attention like a laser beam."When distractions are hard to access, you don't have to worry about willpower, you can channel your energy into valuing time instead of wasting it."

LASER

The author shares main four key ideas for 'Make Time'.<ol><li>HIGHLIGHT</li><li>LASER</li><li>ENERGIZE</li><li>REFLECT</li></ol>In this book, the author shares more than 80 tactics for all the ideas and tells us to choose those that fitted you the most by try those tactics in your daily life.

Make Time Tactics

If you set a single intention at the start of each day, then you will be more satisfied at end of the day after completing that task.Focusing on a daily highlight stops the tug-of-war between Infinity Pool Distractions and the demands of Busy Bandwagon.It creates a 3rd path: Being intentional and focused about how you spend your day.A Highlight should be bigger than a task but smaller than a major project.

HIGHLIGHT

Essential reads for entrepreneurial growth, curated by Lenny Rachitsky.

strategy

Strategy

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Books

startup

Startups

entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship

business

Business

leadershipandmanagement

Leadership & Management

productivity

Productivity

timemanagement

Time Management

Lenny’s Top Business Books

From the New York Times bestselling authors of Sprint comes a simple 4-step system for improving focus, finding greater joy in your work, and getting more out of every day. "A charming manifesto—as well as an intrepid do-it-yourself guide to building smart habits that stick. If you want to achieve more (without going nuts), read this book."—Charles Duhigg, bestselling author of The Power of Habit and Smarter Faster Better Nobody ever looked at an empty calendar and said, "The best way to spend this time is by cramming it full of meetings!" or got to work in the morning and thought, Today I'll spend hours on Facebook! Yet that's exactly what we do. Why? In a world where information refreshes endlessly and the workday feels like a race to react to other people's priorities faster, frazzled and distracted has become our default position. But what if the exhaustion of constant busyness wasn't mandatory? What if you could step off the hamster wheel and start taking control of your time and attention? That's what this book is about. As creators of Google Ventures' renowned "design sprint," Jake and John have helped hundreds of teams solve important problems by changing how they work. Building on the success of these sprints and their experience designing ubiquitous tech products from Gmail to YouTube, they spent years experimenting with their own habits and routines, looking for ways to help people optimize their energy, focus, and time. Now they've packaged the most effective tactics into a four-step daily framework that anyone can use to systematically design their days. 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. Make Time isn't about productivity, or checking off more to-dos. Nor does it propose unrealistic solutions like throwing out your smartphone or swearing off social media. 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. A must-read for anyone who has ever thought, If only there were more hours in the day..., Make Time will help you stop passively reacting to the demands of the modern world and start intentionally making time for the things that matter.

From the New York Times bestselling authors of Sprint comes “a unique and engaging read about a proven habit framework [that] readers can apply to each day” (Insider, Best Books to Form New Habits). “If you want to achieve more (without going nuts), read this book.”—Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit Nobody ever looked at an empty calendar and said, "The best way to spend this time is by cramming it full of meetings!" or got to work in the morning and thought, Today I'll spend hours on Facebook! Yet that's exactly what we do. Why? In a world where information refreshes endlessly and the workday feels like a race to react to other people's priorities faster, frazzled and distracted has become our default position. But what if the exhaustion of constant busyness wasn't mandatory? What if you could step off the hamster wheel and start taking control of your time and attention? That's what this book is about. As creators of Google Ventures' renowned "design sprint," Jake and John have helped hundreds of teams solve important problems by changing how they work. Building on the success of these sprints and their experience designing ubiquitous tech products from Gmail to YouTube, they spent years experimenting with their own habits and routines, looking for ways to help people optimize their energy, focus, and time. Now they've packaged the most effective tactics into a four-step daily framework that anyone can use to systematically design their days. 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. Make Time isn't about productivity, or checking off more to-dos. Nor does it propose unrealistic solutions like throwing out your smartphone or swearing off social media. 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. A must-read for anyone who has ever thought, If only there were more hours in the day..., Make Time will help you stop passively reacting to the demands of the modern world and start intentionally making time for the things that matter.

Jake Knapp created the Design Sprint at Google, where he also helped build Gmail, cofounded Google Meet, and was a design partner at GV. He has since coached hundreds of teams on product strategy at places like Miro, Slack, Nike, LEGO, IDEO, the Wall Street Journal, and the Harvard Business School. Today, Jake is a cofounder at Character, where he helps startups find product-market fit with Design Sprints.


Jake Knapp

John Zeratsky is a design partner at GV and the co-author of Sprint. Before joining GV, he was a design lead at YouTube and an early employee of FeedBurner, which Google acquired in 2007. John has written about design and productivity for Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, Wired, and Time. Originally from rural Wisconsin, John now lives in San Francisco with his wife.