These are my takeaways from the book Make Time by By Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky

Now that life is very busy, our calendars are full and our phones are attracting attention all the time. At the day’s conclusion, reflecting on the fact that we haven’t accomplished anything truly meaningful, aside from staying occupied, can be disheartening. Nonetheless, the cycle repeats itself the following day because we often find ourselves too preoccupied to pause and reflect, constantly caught in the whirlwind of busyness. Most of our time is spent on things that are not useful to us, but we do them anyway as we are not intentional about how we spend our time. This book is about making time for the things that matter to you and are important to you.

We can’t control our schedules but we can control our attention. We should set up our own defaults instead of giving in our attention, hijacked by social media, phones, and TV. Bring clarity and calm to your every day by making every day count and working mostly on the items that matter and bring happiness.

Four steps to making time:

To make time for what matters most, the author came up with a four-step process that should be repeated every day.

1- Highlight: Ask yourself every morning, “What is going to be the highlight of my day?”

2- Laser: Have focused time set aside to achieve your goal each day.

3- Energize: Use your body to recharge your brain through exercise, sleeping, healthy food, quiet, and face-to-face time.

4- Reflect: Before going to bed, decide what you want to continue and what you want to drop.

Perfection is distraction, as it keeps our minds away from priorities. We can’t be perfect eaters, have perfect sleep, or be perfectly mindful all the time. So remove the stress from being perfect.

Turn down the noise around you and slow down a bit to find joy in each day by beginning with one small change every day. Positive results will compound as you go and will help you achieve your bigger goals.

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