The Busy Bandwagon

How did you spend your time last week? You think back does your week seem like a blur? Like a dream, you could barely remember? If yes, then it’s probably that you spend your entire week on the busy bandwagon. The busy bandwagon is a cultural belief that if you are not busy, that if you are not running around like a chicken with your head cut off then you are doing something wrong. At work when you ask how they are doing they would probably tell you that are ‘busy.’ People wear their business like a badge of honor so to avoid feeling left out you and I hop on the buys bandwagon and spend our whole day responding to emails and receiving work calls running from meeting to meeting and constantly adding tasks to our to-do lists. When we step off the busy bandwagon to relax infinity pools are waiting for us to pull us in their vortex. We are going to break down the book by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky step by step and give you an insight on how to give yourself the biggest gift ever, TIME!

About the Authors

Jake spent 10 years at Google and Google Ventures, where he created the Design Sprint process. He’s the author of the best-seller, Sprint and Make Time. Jake has also coached teams at places like Slack, LEGO, IDEO, and NASA on design strategy and time management, and has been a guest instructor at MIT and the Harvard Business School. Previously, he co-founded Google Meet and helped build products like Gmail and Microsoft Encarta. He is currently among the world’s tallest designers.

John Zeratsky is also a designer, investor, and an author, he has served as a design partner at Google Venture in Sprint, including GV support at Slack, One Medical Group, Flatiron, Blue Bottle, Coffee, Gusto, and Digit.

Make Time Review

The book Make Time How to Focus on What Matters Every Day by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky goes on the same line on how to manage your time and make time for yourself from your busy schedule. The book framework is designed to help you to create more time for your day, especially for the things you care about.

Make Time is 4 steps, repeated every day

Highlight: Set a single intention at the start of each day. You’ll be more satisfied, joyful, and effective. The highlight should take around 60–90 minutes and will define your day. Of course, it’s not the only thing you’ll do over your day, but it’s the most important one.

Laser: Do not rely on your willpower; create real physical barriers around distractions to focus your attention on your highlight. Delete all the social media apps from your phone.

Energize: Living somewhat more like ancient people will improve your psychological and physical energy. Float along with your DNA — move your body, converse with individuals, eat clean food, and less sugar.

Reflect: Lastly, treat each of the 87 tactics in this book as a small scientific experiment on yourself, and reflect at the end of the day on what worked and what didn’t.

If you are into productivity, health, and fitness you would be aware of them. Let’s dig deeper into these 4 main key elements

Choosing a Highlight

Choosing a moderate-sized project as you highlight and put all your focus into it until it gets done is something you can give your attention as well as do it in a lesser timeframe. Write your highlights, do yesterday again but with slightly different changes, jot down the most important things then select 2-3 from them to be done in a day, prepare a “might-do-list” select one from it. Schedule, highlight, and get the job done!

Be the boss of your Phone

Log out from your social media accounts once in a while for at least 2-3 days, stay in contact with your most important friends and family. Avoid notifications! DO YOGA! Take a walk, take a breather. Wear a wrist-watch that will replace the need to look at the phone screen again and again. Put a timer on your wifi, you will find it weird and bad in the first few weeks. But that will turn your time frame massively.

Find Flow

Sometimes all you need is to shut the door lock it from the inside and camp in for a few hours, even if you don’t play on some music, put your headphones up and close your eyes. Give yourself a deadline so that you would be able to complete your task in between that deadline. Set a visible timer. [It is helpful] `

Energize to make time more!

Increase your energy every day; take care of your brain just like you take care of your body, if you are done with your routine, go back to the basics. Keep yourself moving, eat real food, optimize caffeine, go off the grid, and, make progress personal!

In Conclusion

Lastly, with time management, take notes to track your results. Every day, reflect on whether you made time for your Highlight and how well you were able to focus on it. You’ll note how much energy you had. Jot down observations on what worked and what didn’t, and make a plan for what kind of tactics you will try tomorrow. Also, failure can be a part of your progress, if you fail at first. Give yourself a break and be calmer. Tweak and run again!