Presentation
Make time is written by
It is a must-read for those looking for practical hacks to improve your day from those who have learned it the hard way.
The crux of "Make Time"
"Make Time" suggests a framework you can implement to take time away from unimportant things and instead find time for things you would want to do, essentially ''making'' time.
It suggests four steps
- Highlight a single activity each day you want to do.
- Make sure you are laser-focused on the steps needed to complete that activity.
- Energize/recharge yourself via sleep, food, or hobbies.
- Analyze and reflect on how you are doing and how to get better.
Essential tips from "Make Time"
We all have 24-hours in a day, but we often cannot assess where a good chunk of that time goes because it is wasted on low-impact activities like social media, emails, etc., or even a poor lifestyle that makes you feel drained all day.
Here is a 4 step process about taking back time and refocusing it on things that matter.
Step 1: Highlight
Pick one activity that you want to focus on for a day. You can pick your highlight based on:
- Urgency - what you HAVE to do
- Satisfaction - Doing X will give me the greatest contentment, and I will consider my day successful
- Joy - what will make me the happiest
You should pick whether you want to have a highlight that is urgent, satisfying, fun, or a mix of all. Ideally, highlights should take approx 60-90 minutes.
It is also important to remember that it is never too late in the day to choose or even change your highlight.
Step 2: Laser
To focus on something, you need to get into the ''flow state'' by creating barriers to distractions.
Willpower is limited, so it is best if you have to use it as sparingly as possible.
Some tricks/hacks to avoid common distractions :
- Log out of apps/websites on phones.
- Use a watch instead of your phone to check the time.
- Turn off all but the most critical notifications.
- Avoid starting your morning on the phone.
- Avoid news surfing for more than 5 minutes.
Step 3: Energize
It is essential to energize ourselves regularly and optimally using a combination of nutrition, exercise, de-stressing and disconnecting.
- Make a realistic workout schedule that you can stick to regularly.
- Try small opportunities to increase mobility, such as using the stairs.
- Eat more plants and snack like a toddler, i.e., eating when you're hungry, not out of habit.
- Consume caffeine optimally and avoid sugar.
- Time your food intake based on your body clock and requirements, and ensure that it doesn't affect your natural sleep patterns.
Step 4: Reflect
You will only know how to improve if you analyze your past performance and see where you went wrong.
- Observe the happenings around you and with you.
- Guess the hypothesis as to why something happened the way it did.
- Experiment to validate your hypothesis.
- Measure the accuracy of your hypothesis
This reflection allows you to track your strengths, decision-making, and critical thinking skills, thereby focusing more on areas where you can do better.
Getting the most out of "Make Time"
Irrespective of how productive or mindful you are of your time, the book "Make Time" is a worthy read.
The ideas around highlighting, focusing, energizing, and reflecting are well fleshed out for reader consumption.
It would help if you could accompany some of the ideas shared in the book with some tools that can boost the implementation of said ideas.
You can get started with something as simple as a to-do list and a calendar.
