These are my take away points from the book – Make Time By Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky – Part 1

Nowadays life is very busy and our calendars are full, our phone is attracting attention all the time. When we look back at the end of day and realise that I did not do anything significant that day other than being busy, it is disappointing but next day we are doing the same thing all over again because we do not have time to think and we are busy being busy. Most of our time is spent by default on the things that are not a useful use of our time, 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 for 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, phone and TV. Bring clarity and calm in your every day by making every day count and work mostly on the items that matter and bring happiness.

Four steps to make time:

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

1- Highlight: Ask yourself daily 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 by 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 a distraction, as it keeps our mind away from priorities. We can’t be perfect eaters, have perfect sleep, and be perfectly mindful all the time. So remove the stress from ourselves of being perfect.

Turn down the noise around you, 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.

See the details on each of the steps mentioned above, in upcoming weeks.