Make Time
Ratings83
Average rating4
It's very difficult rating a productivity book but I do appreciate its structure serving more as a reference book of actions and methods to implement.
I wanted to like this book more. The beginning started off really strong, and I liked the idea of a highlight at the start of your day. But then I think the book just fell into “bite-sized tips” and was more quantity than quality. Also, some of the suggestions just seemed very out of touch. For instance, one of them said “try walking to work to get some exercise”. The authors, who lived in SFO at the time, forgot the majority of their audience lives in suburbia or rural areas, where work is 10+ miles away.
If you don't read self-help books, I think you will enjoy this more. If you do read them a bit, I don't think you're gonna find anything new. The first 25% of this book is solid, but I don't know much you will get from the “tips”. For the authors who spent time in the trenches creating these apps, I was hoping for a more nuanced discussion on how to manage your screentime beyond just “Delete the apps from your phone”.
Summary: Best book on the topic, period!
Longer: The book surprised me! It is by far the best one in this category.
Its structure is straightforward, easy to follow, and, most of all - skippable if you don't feel it's related to you (I don't watch TV, so I skipped the entire section).
The intro is relatively short (it could've been even shorter, but still good enough). Then they provide a handful of tips & tricks you can try to improve your life. They are split into top categories (Highlight, Laser, Energize, and Reflect). Then there's another layer of categorization based on a topic (e-mails, food, etc.) This structure made it easy to navigate and skip (if necessary).
The content itself is also great. Short and, most importantly, actionable suggestions. I really liked their personal stories, which often included “I'm failing in this myself.” They didn't choose the “titan” standpoint, preaching to you with their all-knowing wisdom. The feeling was you're reading something from your colleague who is struggling as you do.
All the suggestions were presented with the constant “this might not be true; try it for yourself first,” which was also lovely.
There is nothing amazingly new in the book. But how it's written, structured, and presented got me. It summarizes digital minimalism, essentialism, focusing, quiet time, calming down, and beating procrastination.
Make Time is the best personal productivity book I've read. It's done more to change my habits and attitude towards my productivity than any other book. 2nd place being GTD.
This book is 5 stars because the authors are relatable. The examples are realistic, not idealistic. The tips are designed to be inclusive of priorities like family, passions, and natural oscillations in energy level. It's a light read, with the authors bringing a chill vibe, and a light touch to do things a little better, not shoot for perfection.
The biggest point in the book is the “highlight”. One 30–90 minute task that you decide to get done today that'll make you happy with the result of the day. Along side the highlight concept there are loads of tips. They're short and snack-able, designed to be experimented with—kept or discarded. I loved the chapters on energy levels.
What mostly makes this book standout from others of same genre is that the authors don't claim to be a single source of truth but rather to offer many different techniques as well as way to implement them using the scientific method.
An interesting approach to focusing your attention on what you care about. The core idea is picking a Highlight for every day. The book provides a framework for why this works and over 80 specific approaches to keeping what you do and where you focus on what you want as opposed to what sucks you in. Along the way, the tips aim towards a healthier, more balanced life. While many of the tips may be familiar to readers of other books on improving focus, the Highlight framework is a little different take. And the authors wrote the book in an informal, conversational style that's fun to read. They are also very cognizant that not every tip will work for everyone, and not doctrinaire about your following every detail exactly as written. They suggest picking specific individual tips to work on, only a couple at once, and trying them and modifying them as needed or moving on if they don't work for you. If you decide you want to implement their tips, you'll need to buy the book so you can keep referring to it as you work on implementing various tips of your choosing. It's very much about making small changes and seeing what they do and building to big change from lots of little changes over time.
Quick read, lots of practical tips. It's essentially the one big thing approach (“highlight”) + removing distractions (“laser”) + analyzing (“reflect”) what worked/didn't work at the end of the day. Rinse and repeat. The fourth component: recommendations to keep your energy up, basic health stuff. That seemed a bit out of place in this type of book, but they aren't wrong.
I was definitely getting Austin Kleon vibes with the hand drawn elements, so it's more fun than a bullet list of do's and don'ts. If you're the type to constantly experiment with what works for you (bullet journalers...) and like reading about the experiments of others, you'll enjoy this book.
Même si j'aime beaucoup Jake Knapp, je dois avouer que ce nouveau livre est plus que moyen. Je crois que je commence surtout à fatiguer sur ce discours d'assistanat par rapport à un « esclavage » par notre smartphone et à quel point on rejette toute faute de comportement sur l'appareil. Au final peu de conseils sont vraiment intéressés passes la moitié du livre dédiée à tout simplement tout enlever de votre téléphone pour surtout ne plus se comporter comme un addict. Le reste tombe vraiment sous le coup du bon sens dans la majorité des cas en étant très peu creusé. Bref, rien de transcendant.
Jake and JZ mix personal experience, academic studies and humour to deliver an excellent list of tactics to help focus, and improve energy and productivity.
Personally, it was good to see the changes I've made in my life in the last two years listed in the book. More comforting was that their reasoning was similar to mine in deciding at those changes.
The best bit was the list of more changes I can now experiment with to further improve focus, productivity and calmness.
Thanks for the book, guys.
Cheers!
When I first finished the book, my gut was a 3-star review for ‘good' but not really adding to the conversation from other treatise on productivity and focus - then, I started to experiment and implement some of the suggestions. I tried removing email and Safari from my iphone, setting an intention outside my normal routines, and planning more of my day outside of work - and decided to up the book to 4 stars. I don't think Make Time breaks new ground, but it does take a lot of strong concepts and ideas - and turns them into actionable plans to try. While I tend to be on top of organization, the suggestions are helping me carve out time for things from the ‘Someday/Maybe' to actually getting done in a normal week.