CM 117: John Zeratsky on Creating Time for Things that Matter

It can seem like we’re working harder, yet rarely getting to what matters most. John Zeratsky understands how we feel and wants to help. He’s the co-author with Jake Knapp of the book, Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day. Their book is an innovative way to look at our work, inspiring by years of productivity hacks that ultimately left them unfulfilled.

John was a designer for tech companies like YouTube and Google before working at Google Ventures with close to 200 startups. There, he began experimenting with hundreds of teams, in order to help people accomplish their most important goals. What he discovered has been distilled to dozens of bite-sized tips and strategies readers can try out and build into their lives.

John’s first book was the New York Times bestseller Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days. He’s also written for The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, and Wired.

In this interview we talk about:

Why checking off items on a to-do list can make us feel productive yet unfulfilled

Why we need to get off the “busy bandwagon” with meetings, email and chat

How endless streams of content are bottomless “infinity pools” for our attention

The direct connection between our tech’s default settings and attentional exhaustion

How to keep the positive aspects of our tech and lose the not so good parts

A four-part framework for making time for work we value

How choosing a daily highlight can make all the difference on how we spend our time

Why we should trade our to-do lists for might-do lists

How to “bulldoze” our calendars to free up time for our daily highlights

How making simple changes to our tech can help us create barriers to distraction

Why dusting off our wristwatches may be the way to go

Why quiet and boredom our invaluable for our work and our health

Key ways we can design our environment so that the right decision is the easy decision

Links to Episode Topics

@jazer

https://about.me/jazer

Getting Things Done by David Allen

Off the Clock by Laura Vanderkam and you can find her interview here on Curious Minds

Curly Lambeau and Lambeau Field

https://maketimebook.com/

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