Making time for what matters | Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky (Authors of Make Time, Character VC)

[00:00] It's not really about productivity. It's not about time management. It's really just about, look, [00:05] In any given day, we're lucky if we can have one great moment where we have our peak attention and we use it well. And it's not going to happen every day. But if we have some intention around it, it can happen more often than not. The notion with the highlight is imagine it's the end of the day. If someone asked you, what was the highlight of your day? What would you say? That's the anchor of everything. That's the core. That's the foundation. Things can sometimes be a mess outside of that. And you still feel really good about your days. You still feel really good about the way you're spending your energy. [00:35] Today, I've got two guests, Jake Knapp and John Zarotsky. Jake and John are authors of two incredible books, [00:44] sprint and make time, [00:46] With Sprint, they've helped more than 300 teams design new products [00:49] and bring them to market, including teams at YouTube, Slack, Gusto, and One Medical, [00:54] Previously, John and Jake worked at Google Ventures, and before that at Google, where John was a leader on Google Ads and YouTube, and Jake helped build Gmail and co-founded Google Meet. Today, they run a venture capital firm called Character, and they actually just opened up applications for their accelerator program called Character Labs. [01:12] which you can learn more about at character.bc slash labs. In our conversation, we focus on their more recent book, Make Time, which a guest of this podcast, Ben Williams, recommended in the lightning round, and I absolutely loved and wanted to make sure more people learned about it and the advice within it, especially product leaders and founders who are constantly looking for ways to be more productive. I want to get you right to the meat of the conversation, so let me just say that

[01:42] productive in your day. And if you listen to this episode, I guarantee you'll find at least three things that you'll want to start doing differently starting tomorrow. With that, I bring you Jake Knapp and John Zerotsky after a short word from our sponsors. Let me tell you about a product called Sidebar. The best way to level up your career is to surround yourself with extraordinary peers. This gives you more than a leg up. It gives you a leap forward. This worked really well for me [02:12] When you have a trusted group of peers, you can discuss challenges you're having, get career advice, and just gut check how you're thinking about your work, your career, and your life. This was a big trajectory changer for me, but it's hard to build this trusted group of peers. Sidebar is a private, highly vetted leadership program where senior leaders are matched with peer groups to lean on for unbiased opinions, diverse perspectives, and raw feedback. [02:42] you to get focused, tactical feedback at every step of your career journey. If you're a listener of this podcast, you're already committed to growth. Sidebar is the missing piece to catalyze your career. 93% of members say Sidebar helped them achieve a significant positive change in their career. Why spend a decade finding your people when you can meet them at Sidebar today? Join thousands of top senior leaders who have taken the first step to career growth from

[03:12] by visiting sidebar.com/lenny. [03:15] That's sidebar.com slash Lenny. This episode is brought to you by Whimsical, the iterative product workspace. Whimsical helps product managers build clarity and shared understanding faster with tools designed for solving product challenges. With Whimsical, you can easily explore new concepts using drag-and-drop wireframe and diagram components, create rich product briefs that show and sell your thinking, [03:45] your build requirements. Whimsical also has a library of easy-to-use templates from product leaders like myself, including a project proposal one-pager and a go-to-market worksheet. Give them a try and see how fast and easy it is to build clarity with Whimsical. Sign up at whimsical.com slash Lenny for 20% off a Whimsical pro plan. That's whimsical.com slash Lenny. [04:10] Jake and John, thank you so much for being here and welcome to the podcast. Thanks for having us. So stoked to be here. [04:19] I was just re-listening to the audiobook of Make Time to prep for this conversation, and I feel like I kind of know you guys from listening to your voice for so long in the car. [04:28] And it's a little surreal to be talking to you guys. [04:31] That was really fun to record, and while we were doing it, we kept... [04:34] saying to each other, it was like we were recording the world's longest podcast. That's what it felt like. [04:41] Actually, on that, I was going to ask you, how long does it take to record an audiobook? I've always been curious. How much time is that? It takes twice as long as it should have because my stomach kept growling and the microphone would pick it up. And so John would do a perfect take.

[04:56] And we're both sitting in the little room together. And the engineer was in the other room and he'd be like, you got to do it again. You got to do it again. The guy's stomach keeps growing. I think it took two days, right? Yeah, I think it was two days. Yeah. Yeah. And I think actually they thought it would take two days. So I don't think my stomach slowed us down too much. [05:16] That is not as long as I thought. I thought it was like a month of recording and such a painful experience. Sounds like not so bad. [05:21] No, it was... [05:22] Honestly, it was really fun. I mean, it's weird, but... [05:25] It's just like, [05:27] I don't know, you can get into this very intense zone where you're [05:30] you're singularly focused, right? There's nothing else that you need to do or should do. [05:36] So it's just like, [05:37] Read... [05:38] Drink tea. Read. [05:40] break for lunch, read, drink tea. It's just like, you know, it's this really satisfying flow. Sounds like a great few days. Yeah, I think it was really fun doing it together, too. I think it would have been harder to do. I mean, obviously, people do it, and I think they like doing it on their own. But like, right, we've been working together for so long. It was just like, it's always more enjoyable when we get to do something together. So that was, that made it cool. Amazing. Sounds like I want to do audiobook now. That sounds like a lot of fun. So to kind of start diving into our conversation. [06:10] You guys wrote this very seminal book called Sprint, which we're going to talk about. We also wrote this other book that I have right here. [06:17] called Make Time that to me was even more powerful. And I think it might be even more powerful on people's lives than Sprint. And I think it's one of the most interesting and most fun productivity books out there. My wife actually grabbed the book from my desk the past week as I've been prepping for this and just started highlighting it. You can see all these highlights in here. She's just going through it. I want to be more productive. Also, a guest on the podcast introduced me to the book. At the end of the podcast, I'll ask you this too, but I ask people,

[06:47] I uncovered it, so it all comes full circle. So I thought we'd start with make time and then get to sprint in the second half of the conversation. [06:55] First question is just what do most people get wrong when they're trying to become more productive? [07:01] To kind of set the answer up, I'll give you kind of a super brief history of MakeTime. And for over a decade, John and I have been kind of like, in quotes, like, designing time as part of our work with startups, helping them find or expand product market fit. So we developed the design sprint at Google Ventures, which the sprint book is about. And now we run this venture fund of our own called Character. [07:31] sprints with companies. And when we're doing that, we get to control how everything happens. We get to change the defaults of the way [07:38] the workday happens, of what happens hour to hour, minute to minute, how people are using technology, how people are interacting with each other. All those things are sort of under our control because we're trying to achieve these big goals in a really short period of time. Everybody focused. So as this stuff was going on, John and I started applying some of the lessons, the things that we found were working really well. [08:01] in those structured sprints, we started experimenting with applying those in our own day-to-day lives. And we found that some of those things were super effective and they were a bit counter to the way we'd sort of heard or learned about productivity. There's like all kinds of habit books and productivity hacks out there. And I think John and I have tried most of them, if not all of them. But it seems like

[08:25] 99 of the people who follow those things are still feeling overwhelmed. They're still stressed out all the time anyway. So, [08:33] Even though we're not productivity gurus, this hasn't been like this thing we were doing forever. It's not our full-time job, but we thought like we want to share this framework. So Make Time, the book and the blog that preceded it was just kind of the side project to share what we learned. And yeah, it seems like it's resonated with a bunch of people. Like there's this kind of steady stream of interest in looking at these things a different way. [09:00] I love it. I love that it emerged out of the sprint concept. I know you talked about that book, but I forgot that these are all very related. I also love that a lot of the [09:07] A lot of the best stuff comes from people actually doing the thing. Like this came from, I just have discovered all these little things and I'm just going to share it. [09:13] Not just like, I need to write a productivity book. [09:16] Yeah, I think, like Jake said, we both had... [09:19] always sort of [09:21] been dissatisfied with the the state of the the productivity art you know and and [09:26] we had [09:27] big things we wanted to do. I mean, when you work in [09:30] any kind of job. I mean, we've both spent our early careers as designers and [09:36] the job is really all about like doing big projects. It's all about like, [09:40] being able to focus, being able to spend time on the things that matter, [09:44] And that's to say nothing of what we want outside of work. [09:48] things that we want to learn how to do personally, people we want to spend time with. And everybody [09:54] it's interesting. Like,

[09:55] We've found that when we talk to people about make time, they always know. They always know what they want to make time for. The problem is not like... [10:03] what should my goal be or what should, you know, [10:06] how should I figure out what to do with my life? It's like, [10:09] you know, [10:09] they usually know [10:11] Um, [10:12] But, [10:12] it's very hard to actually make time for those things. And I think, [10:17] The problem is that [10:20] Most productivity advice focuses on [10:23] getting better and faster [10:26] Yeah. [10:26] about doing the things that are already in front of you. So the messages that are in your inbox, the meetings that are on your calendar, [10:34] A lot of focus on efficiency, like crank through that stuff. [10:38] Our perspective is basically that [10:41] Those are the defaults, you know, just like our software that we use, apps that we use have defaults. [10:47] Those are the defaults of [10:48] of life of like the companies that we work in the culture that we live in [10:53] And so, [10:54] The solution is actually to change those defaults and to really flip this way of thinking, [10:59] on his head. So it's not about how do I go faster? How do I get more efficient? It's about [11:03] How do I put the thing that is the most important first? [11:07] in my day or in my life and and and then build everything else around that and and [11:12] Accept that you're going to need to do a bunch of those little things. You're going to need to answer those messages and go to those meetings. But really start with the idea of what's most important to you. What do you actually want to make time for? [11:24] So along these same lines, we're going to talk about this kind of four-part strategy that you recommend. But a couple of things before we get into there. One is along the lines you just talked about is this.

[11:34] insight that you had of just like willpower is never going to be enough to get you to [11:39] make time for the things you want to do. And you have these two concepts of a busy bandwagon, infinity pools. So maybe just talk about those two briefly. [11:47] The idea of the busy bandwagon is just this expectation that [11:52] you know, everybody's busy. And in the United States, there's kind of this, [11:57] The thing that I think when you travel abroad and talk to people for a while, then you come back, you'll notice, which is if you ask someone, "Hey, how's it going? What are you up to?" They'll be like, "Oh, man, I'm busy." It's the default answer. "I'm busy. Things are busy." It means usually, we can mean a variety of things, but usually it's good. "Oh, it's busy. So business is booming." Or "It's busy. I'm overwhelmed." Or whatever. But busy, it's the expectation that everybody's busy. And we are. We are busy. [12:26] We call it the busy bandwagon because it feels like it should be busy. [12:30] And it's this... [12:32] inner feeling caused by what we see or perceive other people are doing that drives a lot of the stress and uh and i don't mean to sound like i'm like above it all and have like figured it all out it still drives my stress is this inner feeling that like other [12:46] People haven't figured out other people are expecting fast reactions from me, all this. That's the busy bandwagon, this sort of feeling that I should be busy, that everyone else is busy. And what that does inside of us is really the core of what we have to we have to change and figure out this this, you know, sort of getting out of a reaction mode. The other thing that happens to us are the infinity pools. And John, do you want to describe what infinity pools are in our context?

[13:16] we were trying to think of like, uh, [13:17] endlessly replenishing [13:19] uh, [13:20] you know, the, [13:22] fount of content, right? So like [13:24] Basically, if you can pull to refresh or if it streams, [13:30] it's an infinity pool. So this is like, [13:33] pure entertainment stuff. This is stuff that people say [13:35] like, oh, I spend, you know, I spend so much time on Instagram, but it's also like, [13:39] stuff that's important and necessary and productive. [13:43] Email is a huge infinity pool and it's probably like the single [13:48] hardest thing for the two of us to like sort of control and avoid getting sucked into. [13:54] And, [13:55] anybody listening to this is going to [13:58] I think understand how powerful those pools are and how effectively [14:05] designed and engineered those products are to be really compelling and to be friction-free and to just make it easy for us to dive back into that pool. [14:15] And so when you put these two things together, the busy bandwagon and the infinity pool, you kind of have this like, [14:20] It's like a flywheel, but [14:22] but bad. You feel like you really need to be busy, you really need to be on top of everything, and then you've got this whole collection of apps and services and products there that are [14:34] sort of ready to [14:35] to pounce on that. They're ready to take advantage of that [14:38] set of defaults, that cultural and internal set of defaults that you have about what you should be doing. [14:44] And for a lot of people, it just sort of spins out of control. So our view is like, if you can name those two things, if you can understand those two things,

[14:51] then you can start to deliberately change some of the defaults around them so that you can put your most important projects, people, work first, like we talked about. [15:03] I'm guilty of both these things. I feel like the reason I do some of these chats, this one in particular, is it's like consulting, like one-on-one coaching almost. It's going to help me stick to some of the things you teach. And I've already actually implemented a number of the things you recommend, but this is reinforcing it. And then obviously also helping all the listeners get better at these things. [15:22] Before we get into it, one last question is just like, [15:25] Real talk, how is your guys' productivity? You wrote this book, it sounds amazing. There's 87, I think, pieces of advice. How is it going for you guys? As we go through, I want to hear what you're actually using. [15:37] but just broadly, how's your productivity? [15:39] At the top of the interview, [15:42] You asked, what do people... [15:45] What do most people get wrong when they think about this productivity, time management, whatever? [15:52] I'll frame my answer in those terms. So most people, I think they try to get better and faster at doing what's right in front of them. We don't change the defaults in our environment so we can focus and spend time on these different, more important things. And [16:07] If you think of that sort of what do I want to do, what's my goal, what do I want to spend time on that John referred to as like Project A, [16:17] Generally, the things we want to do, these Project A things, they're big, they're not easy to start, they're slow to create dopamine hits, they're non-urgent, like the boss is not asking for them if you have a boss.

[16:30] generally the tasks and activities that stand in our way that keep us from doing project a they're small they're medium size it's obvious how to start them they create dopamine right away [16:41] They're supposedly urgent. [16:43] Email meetings, TikTok, Instagram news, what's on your OKRs, all these things. And I know what's on your OKRs may not sound like it's a peer of those others, but in a way, it really can be. So these big things, they're like at odds with these little things that get in the way that the busy bandwagon expects us to do. These things that have infinity pools built in. [17:02] And so for me right now, it's a constant battle between Jake and the busy bandwagon and my inner feeling of like, how can I live up to people's expectations of me and respond in the way that I should and react in the way that I should? And then how can I do the Project A stuff, the big, important stuff? A lot has changed in my life since we wrote the book. The summary is every few months, I need a few new experiments. [17:32] found in what has been some trying times that the tactics and the framework that we use, because it's kind of simple and it sort of fits with these experiences that I've had for many years doing sprints, that it works. And that if I can go back to that, if I can create space for it, if I can think about this as a [17:52] You know, it's a series of experiments. If I can look at myself with curiosity and say, why am I not? Why are things not working out? And then.

[18:02] try to experiment my way out of it that I'm able to. But yeah, so at any given point in time, I'd probably give myself a B to B minus. And sometimes it's a C and sometimes it's a D and sometimes it's an A and I'm really plugging away. But it's an ongoing, it's totally an ongoing challenge. So I'm not going to sit here and say like, yeah, just follow me with a drone for 48 [18:32] fee I think that [18:33] Part of the way I look at it is, [18:35] It can be a mess, and yet if you can create the space for... [18:41] those Project A moments for your highlights [18:44] That can sort of shape everything else. Like if you just have those moments, things can sometimes be a mess outside of that. And you still feel really good about your days. You still feel really good about the way you're spending your energy. [18:55] Yeah, and having a framework for it gives you a path back [18:59] If you're just stuck and you're looking, you're sort of grasping for hacks, you're sort of like, [19:05] oh, I read this blog post about this thing, I'll try it. [19:09] That might have some short-term effect, but ultimately, you're probably not going to stick to it. You're probably going to fall back into that. [19:17] place of overwhelm and disappointment and burnout, but [19:21] We find that if you have a system, that you can use the system and you can return to it and continue to build on it and experiment. [19:29] that you can make more sustainable products. [19:31] progress on these things.

[19:33] I think a really important takeaway from these two stories you guys just shared is you don't have to do all of these things. You don't even have to do like most of them. If you just do like. [19:40] one or two, if you find one or two things that [19:43] can make you a little bit more productive every day. That makes a huge dent. [19:47] And so I think it's okay to feel like, oh, I tried this stuff. It didn't work. [19:51] I think as long as you [19:53] Take a couple things away today that might be useful to you. And then just try them again in the future if they end up not working out like you did. [20:00] delete an app and then you reinstall it, I think that's okay. So I think that's an important takeaway from this is [20:05] Don't feel like you're failing if you're not doing all of the things that we're talking about today. [20:10] But let's get into it. There's this kind of four-part framework for how to [20:15] help yourself be more productive. Basically, if you could just give an overview and then we'll just talk about each of these steps one by one. So the four parts are create a highlight, [20:23] Laser. [20:24] energize and reflect. So I'll turn it over to you guys. [20:27] just broadly, and then let's go through each of these one by one. [20:30] It all starts with this notion of a highlight. And the highlight is, I hate to say this, it's the most powerful, best part, I think, of the whole process. And I hate to say that because John came up with it. It wasn't even me. But I have to admit, it's really good. And I think as folks have read the book and shared it, that's the thing we hear back from people. This is the one thing. If you could just do one thing from this book and try this out, it's a big deal. The notion with the highlight is start your day out. [20:56] And you think [20:58] Imagine it's the end of the day, you're looking back on the day, [21:02] If someone asked you, "What was the highlight of your day? What would you say? What do you want to say at the end of today was the highlight of today?" And you start there, just like, "Okay, what would I like to say the highlight of the day was?" And we think,

[21:18] You know, you might think about what's... [21:21] What's urgent? Sometimes the highlight is this thing that really has to happen today. Today is the day. There's a big meeting or there's this thing I absolutely have to get done for work for tomorrow. That could be your highlight and getting that done. Well, having good attention to that will be very satisfying. But a lot of times the highlight comes from joy or, you know, satisfaction. [21:42] projects that wouldn't otherwise get attention. And it also doesn't have to just be something at work. It could be people in your life that you want to spend time with, a hobby that you want to spend time on. You know, if you want to get better at Mario Kart, [21:55] having a good session of Mario Kart, whatever might be the highlight of your day. The notion is just in the morning to think, [22:00] What is it? What is that highlight going to be? [22:05] you know, try to find a block [22:07] That's 60 to 90 minutes. That's just usually like the rough time we think it takes to really get in the zone on something, do a really excellent job, be totally focused on it. So that highlight is that that's the that's the anchor of everything. That's the core. That's the foundation. [22:23] and you start that way you're now trying to shape your time around [22:28] that highlight and making sure that you have your peak energy, your peak attention when the time for that highlight comes around. [22:36] So laser is about... [22:39] the tactics you might need to actually focus on that thing. So in highlight, we have a set of tactics for how to create and think about and frame that highlight. Laser, we have a set of tactics for how do you pay attention when that time comes. And then for energize, it's about having the right amount of energy to do the thing to pay attention. My highlight for today is trying to be coherent in this podcast. So this morning, I need to think about what's the best way for me

[23:09] Actually, I have it all listed here. Record a great podcast episode. [23:13] Excellent. Excellent. Okay. Yeah. And if you're not watching on video, Lenny had a sticky note. He wrote it down. So that's actually like literally what... [23:21] The best way to do this is write it down on a sticky note, put it somewhere you can see it. And so you've got highlight laser during the time of the highlight, energize, make sure you have the energy you need when the time comes. And these are just tactics about sleep and food and exercise and just things that help with your mental energy, not crazy stuff. And then the final thing is reflect. And this is where we think about this is like the scientific method. Like, did it work? Did what I tried today work out? And if not, just being curious about it. [23:51] adjusting and trying to think, "Okay, maybe there's another tactic I can try." So the book is like, what are there, like 87 tactics in the book? There's a lot of different approaches, but the expectation is not you're going to use all of them. And the expectation is not that all of them will work for each person. I use different tactics than John does. Some of his don't work for me and vice versa. But that idea of, you know, centering on a thing, [24:13] focusing on it, having tactics for that, having tactics for energy, [24:17] and then having some tactics to reflect and reframe and be curious, [24:22] That taken together, we find, can reframe the way it feels. It's not really about productivity. It's not about time management. It's really just about [24:32] Look, [24:33] In any given day, we're lucky if we can have one great moment where we have our peak attention and we use it well. And it's not going to happen every day. But if we have some intention around it, it can happen more often than not.

[24:46] I think that last point is so important and why the highlight works so well for me is usually there's like you don't get anything amazingly done in a day often. And like usually you're just distracted by these things and you're doing all the easy stuff. You talked about this idea of Project A, like here's the thing I really want to get done. But the dopamine hit us so far in the future and so hard. And so if you like the reason I think the highlight is so powerful is you get one thing done you're proud of. That is a great day. And it may sound crazy that that's true, but it's so true. [25:14] Yeah, yeah, totally. So I want to talk more in depth about each of these four things and maybe spend most time on the highlight and the laser because I think that's where most of the impact comes from. [25:25] So with the highlight, [25:27] Do you have any advice? You shared a couple examples of how to come up with like, here's the thing to pick for the day. There's a few questions that you recommend. And I think you shared a couple of them. And then are there any examples of highlights from your guys's, I don't know, past couple of weeks that would be good for people to hear an example? And then. [25:43] Also, there's this calendar component, which maybe fits into the laser, but I guess that feels like a really important element of this. So if you just talk about that. [25:51] For me, and again, this is where the [25:54] the framework is intentionally... [25:56] flexible [25:57] Um, [25:58] different people have different highlights, but for me, I am [26:03] I'm very project oriented. I'm very like, [26:06] work oriented and for me [26:09] most days, [26:11] you know, a really good day comes from having [26:14] made progress in something that is really important to me, you know,

[26:19] So my highlights are usually, [26:21] kind of focus work, creative work related. [26:24] And this has become... [26:27] even more important, [26:28] Since we started our own VC firm three years ago, and [26:32] Before that, I was sort of... [26:35] I guess more or less like a writer, you know, full time, like, you know, [26:39] writing and speaking at events and doing some consulting and [26:43] Before that, I was a partner at Google Ventures, at GV, and before that, I was... [26:48] a product designer. So like I've been through different [26:51] modes and context in my career, but [26:54] If you know any VCs, if you're listening to this and you know any VCs, they're probably the busiest, most frazzled people that you know who are constantly on email, constantly in Zoom calls and meetings and on airplanes all the time. [27:08] And so the natural environment of that work is the busy bandwagon. And it's to have a lot of infinity pools that, [27:17] that you need to care about [27:19] And so in that context, [27:21] in order for us to make [27:23] progress on [27:24] projects in order for us to [27:26] move the ball on like [27:28] a launch related to [27:31] this program character labs that we run with, with pre-seed founders that's coming up or, [27:36] we're writing a new book and that's a big project or [27:41] working with one of our portfolio companies and running a sprint with them or writing a newsletter that goes out to our LPs. [27:47] Those things are all really important, and I feel like

[27:50] They give us like... [27:51] a unique edge as... [27:53] as a VC firm, if we accept the premise I said before that most VCs are just frantically running around, if we can do these, [28:02] If we can take these bigger swings at things, then... [28:05] Theoretically, they should really help us be successful. [28:07] So most of the time, it's all a very long way of saying that most of the time my highlights are like, [28:13] What do I want to accomplish at work? [28:15] the thing that I want to get done today, [28:18] And so what I do then is I structure my calendar around [28:22] making time for that. There's a tactic, [28:26] in the book called Design Your Day that is really about [28:29] kind of drawing out your day and using your calendar as [28:33] a canvas where you can [28:35] design how you want to spend your time rather than using your calendar as like [28:40] a thing that is done to you, right? A thing that tells you what you have to do, sort of reclaim control over that. [28:48] And so most days, the first half of the day before lunch is my focus time, and I protect that very, very intensely. [29:00] and then use that time to work on whatever [29:04] my highlight is. [29:06] We had a previous guest on, Nir Eyal, also talking about productivity, and he had actually the same advice of just using your calendar. [29:13] as your to-do list, basically, because that's where your time is going to go, what your calendar is telling you to do. So I think there's a pattern here that I think people need to pay attention to. Yeah, definitely.

[29:23] Yeah, and we've, I mean, [29:24] We take it even further and [29:27] we have sort of a calendar template that we use as a team. So we have certain times of the week, [29:34] And it's not exactly the same for all of us on the team, but there are certain times of the week where it's like, yeah, this is when we do these kinds of things. This is when we have these kinds of meetings. [29:42] And not to say that those are all like standing meetings, although we have some of those as well, but these are kind of like, [29:47] the [29:48] the content buckets in the template that we can fill with a specific type of activity. [29:53] But then other parts of the template are sort of reserved for focus work, reserved for individual... [29:59] solo time to work on things that we need to get done. [30:03] So yeah, I think the calendar is like, [30:05] at an individual level and especially at a team level. [30:10] really powerful tool that most people just kind of like, [30:14] not only do they not use it as a tool, they just sort of hate it. They're sort of like, "Ugh, my calendar, it's a mess." If I could live without a calendar, that would be the dream. But I think if you can... [30:27] use some of these tactics or use other approaches to [30:30] to, you know, [30:32] reclaim it and use it like proactively as a tool for yourself. [30:35] it can really help you structure your time around the things you care about. [30:40] Yeah, the way I've been starting to use my calendar is [30:43] This way, exactly, is I try to like, here's prepare for like work on next week's newsletter post. [30:48] Vertical hour and a half, then prep for [30:50] the podcast coming up in a few weeks. So it's like very specific and broken up along those lines. Like, I don't know. Often I often don't do these things as I planned.

[30:59] And one of your principles, something around Groundhog Day, like, [31:03] It's okay to repeat it if you didn't do it. Like if your highlight you didn't do, just like repeat it again and again until you do it, right? [31:08] I think that what's so cool about this notion of Groundhog Day, and if you've seen the movie, well, if you haven't seen the movie, see the movie. What a great movie. But if you've seen the movie, you know it's like, [31:19] He... [31:19] Not to give it away, but he gets better and better at doing the day. [31:25] You know, that's like... [31:27] That's kind of this core philosophy that we take on it. I think a lot of [31:31] the time when in the past I have thought about how can I be effective with my time? How can I be productive? It's, it's a, [31:40] beating myself up. It's not a good feeling to be in that headspace of like, "I'm screwing up. What can I fix?" This notion that it's like, "You're going to have another chance. You're going to have another chance. It's okay. Try again. Just be curious about what happened," is a big deal. [32:00] Starting with the calendar, using the calendar as a framework for saying, "Hey, here's what actually happens. Here's what I think is going to happen." That's what you're saying when you do this design your day tactic. I did this exercise earlier this week. [32:16] switching to a new calendar thing and trying to do some new features. We invest in this company called Reclaim. I'm an investor in Reclaim also. Oh, well. How about that? Not planning. It's a promotion.

[32:32] It's great. Yeah. Yeah. A little, little, little. It sounds like we, it sounds like that was a, you know, like we knew that, but we actually didn't know that. I didn't know. We did not know that. That was just discovered. So anyway, I was just looking at my calendar and I did, I was like, you know what, I'm going to do what John does. I'm going to schedule. [32:46] When I wake up, I'm going to schedule when I exercise, when I eat breakfast, I'm going to schedule when I, you know, take a shower, like everything and block it all out. When I walk and feed the dogs, like everything's going to be on there so that then I, you know, I can have this idea. [33:00] And when the day starts, I kind of know, oh, yeah, there's slots for all those things. And then I found this week that what I thought happened, how long I thought those things take, was not how long they take. And so I set that thing to repeat every day and look at it, and then I'm like, oh, okay, interesting. That's not what happened. Okay, so I can adjust it. I can adjust the template and be a bit more kind to myself about this part, be a bit more kind to myself about that part. [33:30] a good focus time for me. I'll see if I can get there. There's a way I can make that block happen in the afternoon." It's just helpful, just a helpful way to kind of track stuff and see it. Especially, I think a lot of people are visual learners. We can benefit from seeing things. It's not everybody, but a lot of us are in that camp. And when you put it on the calendar, you can see it and that helps a lot. And also keep someone else from booking

[34:00] bookie that time right yeah and they look and they see oh okay [34:04] Lenny's already got stuff going on, I figured out, okay, I better be cautious before I ask for something. And that default to be helpful to other people and say yes when they put something on a free spot on your calendar, [34:18] defeats a lot of our inner purposes. And one core idea, I don't think we've mentioned yet, is that we strongly believe in [34:25] people's intuition about how they should spend their time if they have the chance, what really is important. And that is true. You know, we're talking about, you know, running this VC fund or like writing books, which are obviously very like, well, we're in charge of those things. But like, this is also true. We've been employees in big organizations. [34:43] I also believe it's true that the [34:46] if you have a boss and a boss's boss's boss, that you have great insight about what, if you had a window of time, would be the highest leverage thing for you to do. And it might not show up on your OKRs. It might not be on your boss's radar, your boss's boss's boss's boss's radar. [35:01] You have great intuition and we want to create space for you to do that thing because you're going to feel better about it. You're going to be more satisfied and also good things are going to happen. [35:10] We're spending a lot of time on this highlight, but I think it's because it's so powerful. It's such a simple idea, but so effective. So just to kind of give people tactical advice for how to actually implement this, just a couple of things that I'll summarize. One is you had these to pick the highlight. You had a couple of questions I have here for how to help you pick one. [35:28] for the day. So you either ask, "Which highlight will bring you the most satisfaction?"

[35:34] "or when I reflect on today, what will bring me the most joy?" Maybe that's the same question. Slightly different. [35:41] Okay, okay, good. Satisfaction could be like, "I know this thing has to get done, and I got it done." Okay, good point. Joy could be like, "Oh, I'm going to do this." [35:48] "Man, that was great." And those are like, they're in the same family, but they're cousins. Great point. Great point. Yeah. And I mentioned a lot of my highlights personally are very much in the [36:01] urgency or satisfaction camp. They're like these big chunky projects. I got it done. I finished that deck. I finished writing that thing. [36:10] But I also try to stay attuned to when I need something else in my day, you know, when I need like, [36:17] I need some joy, I need some fun, some play, I need to like... [36:21] prioritize you know [36:23] going for a run or going for a walk or cooking a big dinner. I trust my gut on those things. [36:33] What's most important to me today is not to be productive, but to do something else. [36:38] And sometimes, you know, the... [36:42] That's the best highlight for me. For other people, maybe that's their highlight every single day, right? Like maybe they work as a, [36:49] I've talked to a lot of people who work in healthcare settings about this. Like they're a nurse or a doctor and it's like when they're at work, they're at work, right? Like they're not bouncing around between meetings and emails and Zooms like, [37:02] they're on their feet. There's no time to do anything else. So their highlight is probably something they need to do at the end of the day to unwind or take care of themselves.

[37:11] So you have these three different sort of strategies that we talk about, urgency, satisfaction, and joy as being three different [37:19] places you can look for the right highlight for you each day, but ultimately I think it comes down to like, [37:25] just trusting your gut and sort of asking yourself, [37:27] Like you said, what do I want to look back on and have said, yeah, I'm glad I made time for that? [37:33] Awesome. So yeah, so you touched on the third. So it's basically what would give you the most satisfaction. [37:37] So in the morning, you essentially ask, or even the night before, I think one of you, I forget, because when I was listening to audiobook, I don't know who's talking, but one of you is like, I like to do it the day before. Is that right? [37:48] Yeah, that's me. [37:49] Okay, okay. That's John talking. Okay, so the questions you ask either the night before or in the morning are, "What would give me the most satisfaction today or the next day? What would give me the most joy or what's the most pressing thing that I need to get done?" So you do that, and then the advice is either write it on a Post-it. I actually bought these tiny little Post-its by accident. I was trying to buy regular Post-its, and they're actually really great for this specific use case. It's perfect. So write your highlights, stick it on the monitor. [38:17] So that's one way of doing it. The other stick it in your calendar where you have like focus time every in theory. It's like every day. Here's my focus time once when you know where you have the most energy. [38:25] Is that the general advice? [38:27] Generally, although I think that that's probably more important for a certain kind of highlight. I have focus time most mornings, to be really specific and nerdy about it, like,

[38:42] Monday. [38:43] Wednesday and Thursday mornings, I have focus time. Tuesday and Friday mornings, I have meetings. [38:49] But like, you know, on a Thursday night, like my highlight might actually be to have friends over and cook dinner and like, [38:57] That's not the same as focus time, but it's this like... [39:00] pressure release valve where I'm like, that's the thing that I want to make sure. I want to make sure I wrap up email at five so that I have time to get everything ready. [39:09] but it's not necessarily sort of [39:11] that peak energy moment in the way that we might think about being productive or getting things done or sort of getting into that flow state. [39:21] Awesome. So there's a lot of ways to do it. So maybe just a takeaway if you're listening to this is just think about what could be your highlight. [39:27] for today. [39:28] or tomorrow. [39:29] Yeah, and I would say go one step further and make sure to write it down. Don't just think about it because... [39:37] There's something really special that happens when you write things down, even if it's on a sticky, even if it's in your notebook, your journal, even if it's a note on your phone. [39:47] make... [39:48] Take that step as well. [39:50] Even if you don't see it again, just writing it down is a big deal. [39:55] That's a really important point. I can give you a concrete example of a highlight and a failed highlight from yesterday, actually. [40:05] And most days, these days, my highlight is around making progress on the book. John alluded to working on the book. And so that's obviously a huge project. I heard it said that, you know, if you are writing books, it's like having homework forever. Like you always feel like there's always more to do. And so that's mostly been my highlight. But yesterday I wanted to prepare for this podcast. I knew that was going to be satisfying to be to feel like I was ready. We don't think about talking about make time all the time.

[40:35] project for us, so I wanted to be ready and somewhat coherent. And I also knew I'd be satisfied, but I also knew it was urgent. We're going to be doing the recording today, so that was my highlight. [40:47] Write that down. Get ready for podcasts. And I had two focus blocks. One in the morning, one in the afternoon. It should be easy. [40:54] Focus block number one kind of just didn't do a good job. I was distracted. I was in my email. I was, you know, doing everything that I would say you shouldn't do. I was doing feeling down on myself. I'm a loser. I didn't get anything done. Okay. Second focus block. Oh, man. Now the pressure's on. I really I got to do it. And so I finally get into the zone, you know, and my wife thinks I have like a pretty serious case of undiagnosed ADHD. So a lot of it is just like if I really do have a deadline, then [41:24] and I really will click in. So now I have a deadline, I'm doing it, and I'm making notes and getting there, but I feel like there's still a ways to go. [41:32] And my son, my 12-year-old son, like burst into the room and was, "Oh, God, you're invading me, like right when I'm at peak focus." And he's like, "Hey, I'm going to do one more trip outside to sled in the snow." [41:46] Do you want to come? And I'm like, you know, first reaction. No, absolutely not. I can get this thing done. It's my highlight. This is the one thing I need to do today. I can do it max level of quality if I can just stay in this precious zone of focus. But then I was like, wait a second. What's really going to be the highlight of my day? What's really going to be the highlight? The thing that I might actually remember in the future. We rarely get snow here. I live on this island in Washington State. We.

[42:12] Don't we know we maybe get like significant snowfall once every two years? [42:18] We've only lived here for a few years. He's 12. He loves snow more than anything in the world. He loves snow, but he grew up in California. So he hasn't had many days. He's 12. He's like on the cusp of being like a teenager. There's not maybe any more days in his life that he's going to want me to get on the sled with him and wrap my arms around him and go down the hill. I was like, I got to get out there. So I'm going to get out there. [42:41] Okay, pause this. [42:43] ran outside we did it and like man it was magical and like i didn't know we were going to get one more in because the snow was supposed to be melting already we went down the hill we went down the hill we went it got dark we had to stop but it was like so magic and i remember like the very last [43:00] into the sled run and it's like the last one. And, you know, he's like, man, he's like, that was a great last sled run. So glad we did it. And I was like, I'm so glad we did it. It's great. [43:12] Come back inside. [43:14] you know, 15 minutes, like, try to hustle and get this done. And so I was like, you know, maybe it was like, [43:19] 80% or 75% to where I wanted to be on this. I couldn't check off that highlight as being the, you know, most important thing. But because of the framing of like, it might be wrong, like, what am I going to remember all this stuff? Like, it just felt natural to me to switch modes and say, oh my god, that's actually is a highlight. That's this thing that's really really, really precious. That's where the joy and the satisfaction are most for today. And still, because I had written

[43:49] instead of churning on email the entire day. But I screwed up twice, but it still turned out pretty good. So anyway, that's kind of what it can look like at its best. And a lot of times, it doesn't make that much sense. And a lot of times, I miss the special moments, or I miss the key work moment or the key time when I could have gotten the most done. But I just feel better about it, which is a lot of what this is about. I just feel better about it because [44:14] you know, feel more intentional. [44:17] Thank you for sharing the real talk. I think you made the right choice. I feel bad for having you have to decide between your kid and this podcast. You didn't have me to do it. No, no, no. I just wanted to. It's selfish for me to want to be prepared. I just want to look good. I just want to sound like I know what I'm talking about. Well, it's working out. It all worked out. That's a great story. It reminds me in your book at some point, I forget who it was of you, that you had this like, here's my priorities in my life right now, and it was like family. [44:42] writing make time, something else, and then you're like, [44:44] "Okay, actually, make time is more important right now than my family." Because you just have to get this done. And I wonder if this is a counter. Yeah. Well, yeah, that's, I mean, I think that part of what's, [44:56] people have found useful about make time is that John and I come at this from different perspectives and I have, [45:01] I have kids, I have a 12 year old and a 20 year old sons. And like dealing with being a dad is a big part of how I try to figure out how to make sense of what to do. And and and and John doesn't have kids. And so like he has he has it easy. You know, he said no, he doesn't. But but but that's just a different it's a different frame of mind.

[45:31] wonderful for you, but what about XYZ? Although I'm sure a lot of people who have more kids or when they have young kids, but that's a real part of it. And when you have, whether it's your family, your significant other, anything that's going on in your life that's not part of your work, there are times when you, on a day or in a moment, you do have to shift those priorities. And it can help to just be this idea of stack ranking things and being clear about it can help [46:01] to terms with it. I'm making that decision right now. It makes sense to make right now. Or at least I can see that I did it and if it seems like I screwed it up, I'd flip it back. I know where it happened. [46:13] a lot of this is just like if you were designing a product or writing code or whatever like you can see [46:19] That's where the bug happened. I'll just try to fix that line. Yeah. I love how real you're getting. And it also reminds me of... We just had a kid. He's seven months old. So I'm going through a lot. Congratulations. Thank you. That's busy times. Seven months old is busy times. Yeah. That's great. People always told... [46:36] me told us when we had kids with their babies, they're always like, "Oh, just you wait." I just feel like this is a thing that people want to tell other parents, like, "Just you wait until this happens." And then one person said, "You know what? Generally speaking, it gets easier and easier and easier." Every month, every week, generally speaking, it's gets easier. And I think that is true, so just keep that in mind if you're ever feeling like it's overwhelming. No, I think that is true. I've experienced that. It also gets more amazing. That's what I find, too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[47:06] buy WorkOS. If you're building a SaaS app, at some point your customers will start asking for enterprise features like SAML authentication and SCIM provisioning. That's where WorkOS comes in, making it fast and painless to add enterprise features to your app. Their APIs are easy to understand so that you can ship quickly and get back to building other features, and hundreds of other companies are already powered by WorkOS, including ones you probably know, like Vercel, [47:36] recently launched AuthKit, a complete authentication and user management service. It's essentially a modern alternative to Auth0, but with better pricing and more flexible APIs. AuthKit's design is stunning out of the box, and you can also fully customize it to fit your app's brand. It's an effortless experience from your first user all the way to your largest enterprise customer. [47:58] Best of all, AuthKit is free for any developer up to 1 million users. Check it out at work.net. [48:04] os.com to learn more. That's workos.com. [48:09] I want to talk about the next bucket that you call laser. You could also think of it as just like how to focus better. And this is where like most of the very tactical tips for how to avoid getting distracted are. So what I think might be helpful here is let's just do like a rapid fire through as your favorite tactical tips to help people stay focused. And the more... [48:28] the ones that you actually do and find most helpful, I think it's like six years later now since you published the book, the better. So let's go through some stuff here. Yeah, the basic principle with laser is that

[48:41] you're [48:42] Will power is never going to win. [48:45] And there's great research on this. But for now, just trust me. You're not going to white knuckle your way through not looking at Twitter when you're trying to work. [48:55] So it's all about making it hard, creating barriers to getting distracted. [49:00] A few things for me, like, [49:01] I'm not on Instagram and I'm not on Facebook. I was on both of those things and I left both of them. I disabled my accounts. [49:10] I am on Twitter and LinkedIn, but I don't have either of those apps installed on my phone. [49:15] I stay logged out of those sites on my computer, except for when I want to use them for some specific purpose. [49:22] LinkedIn, I kind of need to use all the time because I'm a VC and I have to look people up and stuff. [49:27] So I found this Chrome plugin, or Chrome extension I guess is the right word, [49:31] that [49:32] disables the feed in LinkedIn. So when I go to LinkedIn.com, it's like the search bar at the top, but there's no feed. [49:38] which is amazing because I can use LinkedIn as like, [49:42] the phone book and then not get distracted. So those are some of the very, very concrete specific things that I do. All again, with the goal of putting a speed bump between me and that thing, so that if I go and I don't do this much anymore, [49:59] I used to like literally my hands on the keyboard would just be like, [50:04] TWI, like Twitter.com and then you see that login screen instead of my juicy feed and I'm like, "Oh yeah, right. Okay, I did that on purpose. Great. I broke that feedback loop a little bit."

[50:17] I did a similar thing with Twitter slash X where I deleted the app and I just used the mobile website. I think this point of logging out is really powerful. I think people haven't heard that idea as much because it's not like you can't log in really easily. Just click a couple things in your back. But to your point, it reminds you like, OK, I see. I really shouldn't have done this. Well, I also signed up for two-factor authentication for everything, not because I care about somebody hacking my account, but because it's another speed bump. Like it's... [50:46] Because that way, even if your browser remembers your password, or I use 1Password, so even if the browser extension is going to fill it in for me, there's still another step. [50:58] It's sort of like reverse engineering my own distractibility. [51:02] That feature that everyone's always talking about that Apple built of like the code being automatically there in the keyboard, like that's counter to this friction that you've created. Yeah, that's true. So what's interesting is I had this and then I just like, God damn it, I really just want to be on Twitter. And so I just reinstalled it again recently. And I don't know how to, I need to like fight that again. [51:22] Well, you know, I go through cycles like that too, and I go through that a lot with email. So, um, [51:28] Jake, you sort of have email on your phone. Is that right? I would just be on the floor checking email. I used to do that. Jake inspired me a long time ago to remove email from my phone. And so for years and years, that's been my default. But [51:46] More recently, I've had more reasons to install it, mostly related to travel. If I'm on the go and I just want to stay on top of things.

[51:55] And something that Jake and I have talked about a lot is like, [51:58] you kind of go through these different cycles of like, hey, I need this thing or I want this thing. And then like, [52:03] part of the, [52:04] the reflect step, like part of paying attention and reflecting on how it's going is to recognize like, oh, wow, I've actually been spending a lot of time like on email on my phone or a lot of time on Twitter, like. [52:16] Maybe I'll just uninstall it for a while. You know, maybe I'll just like, [52:18] reset, you know, and do that for a while and then there will be some other thing that happens that causes you to reinstall it and like, [52:24] that's totally fine because you're being deliberate about it and you're paying attention. [52:29] Rather than saying like, it has to always be this way forever, [52:33] and it's set in stone. [52:35] That's a great tip of just coming back to it, not feeling like you're defeated. It's like, all right, let's try this again. [52:40] Yeah, I think a big part of it is if you... [52:43] can experience the feeling of not having it on your phone. It's like, like, [52:49] I'm old enough to have lived in a world building products where there were no smartphones. And like... [52:55] We got a lot done back then. It's still things happened. I mean, for God's sake, they designed the first iPhone without being able to use iPhones while they did it. You can do a lot. So this... [53:06] This idea that we have to have it or it's... [53:09] everything's going to fall apart. That's just not true for 99.99999% of everyone. [53:16] It's interesting to see what it feels like if you delete [53:19] all of the infinity pools off of your phone. And this is something I did [53:23] out of rage at myself in 2012. And I was, it was another situation where I was like, I was with my kids.

[53:30] We were much younger at the time. And I was, you know... [53:35] spending time with them or playing wooden trains. [53:38] And all of a sudden, my son's like, "Dad, Dad, Dad, Dad." And I'm like, "God, what?" And I didn't even realize it, but I was... [53:45] on my phone. I don't even remember what I was doing, email or something, but I think I told him, he's like, "What's on your phone?" Because to him, he was like, "We're doing something really fun. So if you're on your phone, it must be something really cool. Maybe it would be a cool thing to share." I'm like, "Oh, [54:00] because this is great, so it must be another great thing. He wasn't trying to shame me or anything. And I was all defensive. I'm like, "Well, I need to do this for work," which was, I think, my internal monologue of why I was doing this thing that actually was just a really low friction dopamine hit. And then I thought, like, what? [54:19] god this is not what i wanted this is not why i worked so hard today so i would get done with my work so i could be home in time to do this before my kids go to bed and i was like screw this so i just started deleting things on my phone and i deleted email and i deleted facebook and i deleted just everything that had an infinity pool everything that had an infinite amount of content news is like this you know it's like anything streaming right and like when we wrote this book

[54:49] said like it's gonna we thought it was gonna get worse and it has but like you know at that point in time there was really like Netflix and now there's all these streaming services right at that point in time there was Instagram and Facebook but now there's TikTok like the best part of every video available instantly right here like this stuff it only gets harder to resist when you clear all that stuff off of your phone it's painful right the idea of like deleting all this stuff and each time the phone's gonna ask you this is gonna delete all the data and settings are you sure you [55:19] though [55:20] Just what does that feel like? [55:22] And it's usually a feeling of discomfort, but also relief. [55:26] that like, I don't have to check this. This thing, I don't have to check it. [55:32] I don't, [55:32] I don't have to. And if you've ever felt like your phone was like, [55:37] in the lord of the rings like [55:39] how Bilbo, or I guess, yeah, Lord of the Rings, they want to put their hand in their pocket and touch the ring, or put the ring on without even knowing it. Frodo's like, I don't even realize I did it. That's what this thing is like. And when you take those off, just that feeling of relief is, to me, so powerful. That having done this for a decade now, and yeah, there's exceptions, like I'm traveling, God, I have to check my email for X reason, and I install it, and I check it.

[56:09] people. [56:09] This static, there's this notion of attention residue. And I think the researcher who coined this term is Sophie Leroy from the University of Washington. Anyway, you can look that up. I think I learned about that from Cal Newport. But this idea makes a lot of sense that you pay attention to some things and they just stick in your head and they create the static. Those apps just create the static. The idea of email being on my phone and accessible at any time creates a discomfort, a disquiet. [56:37] that [56:37] Now that I've seen it and felt what it's like to not have it, I could not imagine experiencing it. You do give some things up. [56:45] you're not going to be as responsive. John and I don't have as many Twitter followers as we have if we use Twitter, right? There are these things that you look at other people, and I just saw a post on LinkedIn because I haven't used John's plugin yet, but I looked on this post, and it was a colleague that I used to have, and she was saying, like, yeah, John, I'm like, [57:06] posted a few tweets last year and a couple of them went viral and I gained 30,000 followers. I was like, "Man, all I have is 30,000 followers." That was from years and years ago. I thought I was a pretty big deal with 30,000. "Oh, jeez, maybe I should." I was like, "Oh, God, don't do it because I know when I'm doing it, then I'll be thinking about it all the time." The attention residue will [57:26] spoil my life. So yeah, anyway, sorry, that's just like a rant, but like I just, you should try it. The distraction-free phone thing is just worth trying. Take off, [57:36] If you can take off everything, if not, just try taking off [57:38] The thing that's your kryptonite. What's the thing that is the hardest for you to resist? Sucks your attention the most? Makes you feel not good. Take it off for, try it for a day or try it for two hours just to feel that feeling. And then once you've felt the feeling, you'll always know, like, I could release that.

[57:55] And I think that's powerful. And I think when you delete it, it's important to know it's not actually nothing's being deleted when you're deleting the app. Like you can reinstall it, you log in, it's all the same. It's all the same. That's an important point. They make it sound like, oh, my God, this is a big deal. It's not like this. Yeah. Just have to remember your password or Google author or whatever using this metaphor of the Lord of the Rings and the ring is so good for how it feels to just like I'm just going to check Twitter. What's the problem? Just going to check it again. Check it. That's so good. [58:25] resist the ring is they hide it, they put it somewhere else, they give it to Frodo to take it, right? That's like the same solution. It's just like, I can't get access to it. It's over there. Right, right. Yeah, you got to be like Gandalf. Even if that ring would do great things for you, you got to give it to Frodo for a while, maybe show up at the end with an eagle. Just too eerie. Yeah, yeah, the eagle. Scoop them up. Yeah, no, man. So the key tips here are [58:50] find the apps that are sucking your attention. Could be Twitter, could be LinkedIn, could be your email. [58:55] and delete them and/or log out of them. [58:58] What else? [59:00] There's a few tactics that Jake and I both use that are related to TV, like watching TV, and a really simple one, which is also like... [59:09] kind of a kind of a luxury one but but i think there are ways to do it that are like pretty universal it's just like [59:14] not having a TV in your main, like, [59:16] living space like [59:18] Again, not having the default be like, [59:20] I'm home. The TV is on. Like, what are we watching? [59:23] And so like, you know, for me and my wife, that's always been like,

[59:28] the TV is just like in a different room. And like, Jake, you guys, do you use a, like a projector? Like where you, like, if you want to watch something, you have to like, [59:37] get it out, set it up, and make a decision to watch something. [59:40] Yeah, so it's like a bit of a project. And it's like it doesn't take that long, but you definitely are not just like click. Like it's – and you don't see it when it's not set up. So we have like a projection screen that's all kind of folded up and, you know, in the corner. And the projector is like in a cabinet. So you got to get it out and get a chair and put it on there and like – [1:00:02] If you're motivated enough, you can do it, but it takes a few minutes. You need an old-timey camera that you have to wind with... Yeah, right. ...so has to sit there. Here's another one that... See the piano in the back. Yeah, right. Another one that's really helpful for me that actually bridges the laser section and the energized section because it relates to sleep is... I don't keep my phone in the bedroom. The phone doesn't come in the bedroom, and not only that, [1:00:30] The place where it charges, the MagSafe little charging place for it, is downstairs. It's on a different floor. It's in the kitchen. [1:00:39] When I put that there at the end of the night and I go... [1:00:43] Like upstairs, I might still be awake for like an hour. I might read. I might get ready for bed, all those things. [1:00:50] But the phone is a way to make sure that the last thing I do each day is not on my phone [1:00:56] That's super helpful to me. And I think there's a bunch of ways, whether it's in a drawer or in a cabinet, there's a bunch of ways you can implement that

[1:01:03] that tactic, that [1:01:04] I think could make a big difference. My wife and I have been talking about that actually, but the issue is our [1:01:10] to watch our kid with the Nanit app, hey, we need our phone. I know that you can get, like, other devices that aren't on the phone, but we just like the Nanit. And so we've kind of stuck with that. [1:01:20] Yeah, one tactic that's related to that that – [1:01:24] a lot of people have told us they've had success with, not specifically with the Nanit app, but with [1:01:30] Some people have said like, oh, I can't uninstall those apps because like, [1:01:33] like Twitter, LinkedIn, whatever, because I do social media for my work. Literally, my job is I do marketing at a company, I have to be on social media. [1:01:42] So what some people will do is [1:01:44] they'll have a separate device. So they'll just have like, you know, it's almost like the old days of like your personal phone and your work phone. Like they'll just have like a work device, like a work iPad. [1:01:53] that those apps are only there and when they're working, they're on it. When they're not working, they put it away. [1:01:59] You could have another device that's like the Nanit device and that's all it does and it's in a nice little stand by the bed. [1:02:07] That can create some separation as well. [1:02:09] That's a great idea. I think there's a company, I think it was Ariane Huffington made a thing where it's like a little bed for your phone, where you put it somewhere in the living room and you put it to bed and you charge it there and it's outside your room. [1:02:21] Yeah, there's a company, I can't think of the name right now, but I can look it up and send it to you. There's a company that makes like a... [1:02:26] a cool like box that like not only like you put your phone in it charges but it like [1:02:31] has some sort of like way of like,

[1:02:34] It interacts with the phone. It puts it into Do Not Disturb. There's some cool integration that it does. [1:02:41] Those things are a little bit gimmicky, but if it helps you create that default, I think it's worth it. [1:02:47] Here's a trick my wife wanted to share with you guys as she was reading the book. She's like tell them about this thing that we've been doing which is with tick-tock. She Doesn't install the app and she basically relies on me to send her tick-tock videos I like to her account and she then checks on my phone your Frodo [1:03:10] The and so the trick there there's kind of two wins one is she only sees like the best stuff like she right she respects my taste of [1:03:17] to watch. [1:03:18] And then two is I'm always like, give me my phone back. [1:03:21] And so there's like a limited time where she can watch them. And that keeps her from getting addicted to TikTok. Yeah. My wife and I have a similar dynamic, but in reverse and with news. Like I spend like very little time like reading the news and I don't have any news apps on my phone. [1:03:37] But my wife's pretty into the news. She... [1:03:41] uh has like a healthcare background and and she studied journalism in school so she loves you know particularly like those two topics in the intersection of those two and so like she she gives me like a news digest you know she she'll just like when we're chatting at the end of the day or like you know when we're doing something together she'll just like [1:03:57] you know, it's not structured, like it's not, you know, it's not like some official thing, but she just kind of like shares like, [1:04:02] what she was reading about that day. And it's like, it's nice, you know, it gives us something to talk about. It's like,

[1:04:07] It helps sort of like, I think, [1:04:09] it suits both of our like, [1:04:11] our styles and our preferences like it's good for her [1:04:15] It's good for me. So it's fun to think about how you can implement some of these [1:04:19] ideas like in a relationship as well. [1:04:22] How do I subscribe to this feed of your wife sharing the news every day? This sounds like a great podcast we all need. [1:04:29] Really, really good stuff or really important stuff will find us. You know, it's like I think this there is part of the part of the busy bandwagon or part of the infinity pools thing is this. [1:04:41] feeling inside that I'm responsible for staying up to date with the most important news in the world or the most important news in my inbox or my [1:04:51] company, my team work and I'm responsible also for, [1:04:56] Getting the very best of entertainment that's out at this moment, that's the most topical and the funniest or the most interesting, whatever, at this moment. And, you know, it's okay to let go of that. [1:05:07] and put [1:05:08] you know, just... [1:05:09] The good stuff, it'll come to you. People will share it with you or you'll hear about it. If it's a really big news story, [1:05:15] you'll hear about it eventually. If it's going to affect you, actually, you'll hear about it. And with most news and most entertainment, we don't play a role. It's hard to admit, but we don't actually play a role in what happens. And so the idea that we're responsible for being on it all the time, that's a job that we can quit or at least take a sabbatical from. So Tim Ferriss talked about this in the four-hour work week. Way back in the day,

[1:05:45] what John just shared before this. And I kind of find this with... So first of all, you find that when you delete Twitter or LinkedIn, like, [1:05:52] You go a week without it, and it's like nothing is any different. [1:05:55] Like, you still know everything you need to know, your job, everything's going great. You missed a bunch of stuff that had no impact on your life. And so I think doing that exercise helps you realize that. I don't need to be on Twitter all the time. [1:06:09] Not to get political, but with news about Trump, there's always these headlines. Trump, look what he did in this lawsuit today. It's over. [1:06:15] I just feel like [1:06:17] There's so many posts about all these things Trump is doing every day and none of them, nothing happens. Like they're all like it's just the same thing just keeps going. Like if something actually happened there, I would like I would hear it from a lot of people. The New York Times would send me a big push, you know, so it's like I don't need to know all these things he's doing every day. Well, it doesn't matter what your political affiliation is. That is true. Like, yeah, Trump is always going to be in the news. And it's always going to like, you know, like that's that's the that's the constant. [1:06:47] third constant death taxes and Trump will be in the news. A related tactic that [1:06:54] is... [1:06:55] That I've been doing for a long time is my main source of news is – [1:06:59] The Economist magazine, which is like, [1:07:02] like far too highbrow for what I need, but the main feature of it is that it's weekly. [1:07:10] Because at the end of the week, like, [1:07:12] what the zillion stories about like, [1:07:15] Trump or whatever like

[1:07:16] If there was something of consequence, it gets distilled into this really good summary, really, really good. Economist is some of the best journalists in the world. They're just absolutely fantastic. [1:07:30] Not only does it have this like really nice cadence of once a week, [1:07:34] if something matters, like it's going to get rolled up there, it's going to get summarized. And so that's one of my most durable [1:07:40] habits related to these tactics is like, [1:07:45] reading the news once a week, reading The Economist. It fits my brain. It kind of fits my [1:07:51] my sort of life rhythm really well. [1:07:54] Yeah, it's the opposite of Twitter, basically. So yeah, let's hear a couple more tactics, and then let's touch on the other two parts of this framework. [1:08:02] Well, first a pairing and then one more. The pairing is reset expectations and slow your inbox. So these are two tactics related to mostly to the email and messaging. But so resetting expectations is just about having... [1:08:19] maybe a conversation with people you work with, but it can be as simple as a signature in your email. And so one great example of this is, [1:08:31] a signature that says I'm checking email [1:08:35] two times a day as an experiment to improve my focus, or I'm checking email, you know, [1:08:40] Once or twice a day, you decide how spicy you want to get with this option. [1:08:46] because I'm working on an important project and

[1:08:49] just a simple line that people will see passively as you send emails that will reset their expectations of [1:08:57] how quickly you'll respond. And if you like, you can say, [1:09:02] I'm checking email once a day because I'm working on a big project. You can text me if it's urgent. Feel free to text me if you can invite people to do so. But that very act of just like putting it in there, you can also do it as an out of office autoresponder. So just like, hey, like, [1:09:19] instead of I'm actually out of the office like hey I'm going to be slower slow to respond to email because I'm working on an important project that because is really important and we talk in the book about this kind of funny study about the power of because and this case where people would sort of sort of make up bogus excuses but they'd say because like to cut a line it's an old study they're making photocopies but they would cut the line and say I need to cut the line because I need [1:09:49] the time that person would let them cut the line. We're suckers for explanations, all of us. So if you say because, people will feel better, and you can feel better about saying it. But this idea that you're just going to like, [1:10:00] have, you know, put up a placard basically that says like, hey, I'm slow to respond because I'm working on a project. [1:10:07] and maybe give people an escalation path or don't that's a huge deal and it seems like it would be a huge deal because it changes others expectations and that is true but the real power of it is in changing

[1:10:21] like my own our own expectations about what we are going to do and what we are expected to do most of the stress comes internally from our feeling that if we don't get back to people right away we're not enough we're not measuring up we feel some kind of shame or guilt about not doing it and not being fast and not being responsive and so doing this statement is just kind of about renegotiating with ourselves the other one is to slow down your inbox this is a simple one if you [1:10:50] If you start to do that, if you start to just check your email once or twice a day, or even less frequently, or even if you check it a little bit more frequently, but you aren't responding to emails, you don't hold yourself accountable to this idea of an empty inbox, [1:11:03] then [1:11:04] the whole loop slows down. If you respond to emails really fast, you respond to messages really fast, people respond back to you and then there's more to respond to. And if you slow down that little hamster wheel, it slows down. And so that's powerful too. So those two around email, I think can be really helpful. They help me with this, my default feeling about email and messaging and everything is I should be as responsive as possible. And I have to constantly kind of renegotiate that with myself. [1:11:34] ways I do it. This other one that's pretty extreme that I only just tried for the first time, it's in the book but I hadn't actually tried it, but this was a reader of our blog [1:11:43] told us about this. Her name is Krissa. I think she allowed us to use her first name, but not her last name. So Krissa, if you're listening, shout out to you. This turned out to be a great tactic, but it's to cancel the internet. And she had canceled the internet at home, which is wild. But what I did was I have an office, like a very small office in

[1:12:01] this small town here where I live. And I canceled the internet there so that I could, when I went there, all I can do are tasks that you can't do with the internet, which is a lot. I mean, you can use a lot of, [1:12:13] apps in like offline mode. And it's a great place for me to write. It's a great place for me to do focused work, design something, presentation, but any kind of focused thinking, reading, writing can happen there. And now the whole feeling of stepping into that room where I cannot access the internet is insane. To create this kind of a thing at home, you can do things like put a timer on your [1:12:43] plug it into the wall, plug your router into that, and it can actually switch your internet off at a certain hour or hours. There's also software that will let you do this selectively. But the big notion of just having there be a time when you are off and it's like, [1:12:57] a fairly significant pain to get back on again. It's more than just clicking Wi-Fi on, Wi-Fi off. I find for me that's not enough of a speed bump. It's pretty powerful. [1:13:06] Just the way you're describing the feeling of walking into an office that has no internet, I totally... [1:13:11] Feel that. Just imagine, just like, I have no internet here. What am I going to do? I could do so many things. Yeah. You know, it might be a coffee shop where you don't find out what the Wi-Fi password is. You know? And like, there's just... [1:13:25] This amazing, amazing thing. Maybe it's just you go to a park where there's no Wi-Fi. Whatever it might be, finding a place where you can't, you just can't get that stuff, leave your phone at home if you can't.

[1:13:37] there to delete all the apps. [1:13:40] It's so great. It's so great. And it's then you're not fighting the battle. A lot of this stuff. [1:13:47] There's like a visualization I think of where I've got the highlight in front of me. It's right there, this thing I can see that I want to do. [1:13:55] But it's like, [1:13:57] five feet away or 10 feet away. And right next to me, just kind of like vibrating are all of the, like you can imagine like all the app logos are just like kind of vibrating right around my head. They're right there. And touching any one of them, it's like they're little pieces of candy. Like they're, it's all going to feel good. There's this like really good meal, like five to 10 feet away is this great sandwich. But like these little pieces of candy are like right in my face. And it's going to be hard to resist just popping a, you know, like a little like Sour Patch Kid or [1:14:27] just push them far enough away so that there is far away or farther away than the sandwich. I'm going to eat the sandwich. And Mike, if that's, [1:14:34] what you do basically with these barriers to these distractions, then you can get into laser mode. And it's easy. You want to. Once there's space, you'll want to do the thing that's most important. It's just it's hard because the candy is right in our face. [1:14:49] Such a good metaphor. You also have this metaphor of Odysseus sailing past the sirens. If folks know that story where there's a sirens, I don't know, cliff thing where he's... I know. Well, in eighth grade, I played Odysseus in a school play, so I tell you all about it. Oh, man. What a character to play. Yeah. And like in that story, he...

[1:15:11] He wanted to experience these sirens, who nobody could resist, but he forced his... [1:15:17] sailors to tie him to the ship and not allow him to do anything, even though he's like, "Let me go. I need to go there!" Because everyone crashed into the sirens. Anyway, I'm doing a bad job explaining this story. But I think it just comes back to the same point again and again that you can't rely on your willpower. [1:15:34] to not go towards these vibrating candies all around you, that you need to set up these systems. I think there's this like... [1:15:42] This notion that we will... [1:15:46] use willpower maybe comes from the fact that some people can like maybe you know some people are just using willpower or they're they're on twitter they're on instagram they're on tiktok on facebook they're doing all these things and like they're also functioning just fine and like or at least on the what we see from the outside is just fine but maybe internally too it's fine it just seems that everybody i actually talk to and certainly my personal experience is all that stuff makes me feel bad [1:16:11] and actually undercuts my ability to do the things that are meaningful, the meaningful contributions I can make [1:16:19] through my work or through my life, whatever, they're all undermined and undercut by the bad feelings and the distraction that come from [1:16:26] all social media, [1:16:28] all of the news, [1:16:29] and almost all of my email and so like if that's true like for [1:16:35] Anybody if it's even remotely true for us, we have to just radically rethink what we're doing this is

[1:16:42] This thing, I think we basically are... [1:16:45] steered toward becoming reaction machines, you know, and this notion of I'm going to have an empty inbox. I'm going to do every task and be a fast responder. I'm going to be in every meeting. I'm going to do that because I want to help other people. And that's the way it works. And I think [1:17:00] This desire to be helpful is a big driver of it. I think we want to alleviate our stress and other people's stress. And that seems like the right way to do it. It's candy. Some of the stuff is candy and easy. We also see this modeled by people in power. It's like CEOs and bosses. It works for them because they're applying their influence through being constantly reactive and being in meetings all the time. That's just how they do what they do. That's how they apply their influence. [1:17:30] At the bare minimum, for the rest of us, [1:17:35] And for those of us who, again, I think it's the vast, vast majority for whom all of these things create problems and we're not able to easily willpower and self-esteem manage all this stuff. [1:17:46] If we're a reaction machine, we're not doing meaningful work. No project days and we're not really alive as humans. We're just chatbots. And so it's worth experimenting if you don't want to live your life out as a chatbot. [1:17:59] Yeah. [1:18:00] I think the point you made there around the [1:18:02] Feeling is just a really important point that even if you feel really productive enough and you're getting things done, if you're feeling bad, it's still an important thing to focus on. [1:18:11] this idea of are you spending time on things you want to spend time on.

[1:18:15] You also reminded me of this app I'll mention briefly that I think you guys will love. I don't know if you've heard of this. It's called MailmanHQ.com. It shuts off your Gmail for... [1:18:24] Periods of time. So you could say only allow my email through. Yeah. [1:18:28] at these times of day. [1:18:30] And so instead of cutting out your name or whatever, it's just like you can batch your release of email. That's beautiful. MailmanHQ. MailmanHQ.com. [1:18:38] Okay, I'm writing that down right now. Yeah. [1:18:41] I go on and off it because sometimes I just want an email. But it makes a big difference. It's wild how just not even knowing your email makes a big difference. Yeah. Okay, let's touch on the last two parts of this framework, Energize and Energize. [1:18:55] reflect, and then let's spend a little time on Sprint for people to get a sense of what this [1:19:00] Method is all about for folks that haven't read the book. [1:19:03] Yeah, so to like replay kind of the system, you know, overall, like highlight is about the thing you want to make time for like today, the most important thing today. [1:19:13] Laser is about creating barriers to distraction so that you have as much of your attention as possible to focus on your highlight on that one thing. [1:19:24] Energize is sort of like a... [1:19:26] it's like a booster to laser. It's sort of like, [1:19:30] The big idea is that, you know, [1:19:33] Our brains and bodies are connected and like our ability to like pay attention and to focus and to like, you know, do those things that we care about. [1:19:41] only works when we're well, you know, and we have slept, we have eaten well, we have exercised, we have talked to other people the right amount, you know, not too much, not too little,

[1:19:54] And so we put this as part of the MakeTime framework because we think it's [1:20:00] you know, [1:20:01] We don't think you should go crazy, [1:20:04] try like a million sort of like, you know, biohacker like type of, you know, things. But we do think it's worth applying this same philosophy of like pay attention to what's working, what's not like have a system, like try some new things, pay attention to those things like, you know, run these experiments. We think it's worth doing that. [1:20:22] for your health, for your energy as well because it really does make a difference. [1:20:27] Maybe share one or two tips there real quick for people to... [1:20:30] energize to create a little more energy during their day. [1:20:33] in the years since we wrote the book and as my life has just continued to change and I've gotten a little bit older, I've realized that [1:20:39] that sleep is probably the single most important thing. [1:20:44] I mentioned earlier not having my phone in bedroom, [1:20:49] No TV in the bedroom. Hopefully that goes without saying, but just being able to really construct an environment that allows me to sleep. I started wearing an eye mask recently. I do that. [1:21:02] Yeah, it really helps me fall asleep and stay asleep. [1:21:05] And then the other thing is like, [1:21:07] I, you know, exercise is, you know, a big source of energy for me. [1:21:12] But I realized that like, [1:21:14] I was making excuses about why I didn't need to or shouldn't exercise on any given day. So even though this is not what we recommended,

[1:21:24] In the book specifically, I... [1:21:27] I ended up like signing on with a personal trainer so that I have like [1:21:31] accountability. I have like a schedule. I have somebody who's like thinking about like, [1:21:36] what I need, that's not just me. And those two things have kind of been the [1:21:42] the pillars of how I build energy over the last few years. [1:21:46] I use this app called Future. I'm an investor. Just a quick disclaimer, but it's basically a personal trainer through an app that's like a real person that helps you design a workout for you. And then they give you the workout on the app and you just follow the instructions. And that's the thing that got me working out three times a week. Nice. Yeah. That's awesome. Killing it. OK. And then with Reflect, maybe just briefly talk about the importance there and then one thing people could do to... [1:22:12] reflect on how things are going. [1:22:14] Reflect is just simply the act of looking back on the day and treating the day like [1:22:21] It wasn't a marble gravestone of your successes or failures. It's just an experiment that you ran. What happened in the experiment? Taking note of it in that lens, what did it look like? There's a template in our book that has some questions you can answer. But really, it's pretty simple. If you write down your highlight in the morning or the night before, if you're John, and you [1:22:51] I don't know. [1:22:51] Then at the end of the day, you just look at it and you're just like, "Okay, did that happen or did that not happen?" If you stick it somewhere visible, you won't even have to do anything. You'll just come across it and you'll know if that happened or not. So that's the simplest part of it is writing it down, sticking it will create a reflection loop for you.

[1:23:13] Another thing that I think is quite powerful at the end of the day is to write down, keep a notebook by the side of the bed and write down one or two or three things that you are grateful for during the day. Just like a simple gratitude journal. And you'll start, this keeps you in the frame of mind of like what was cool today? What happened that was satisfying or joyful? What brought me joy? [1:23:43] starting to look for those good things look for those big highlights and that's a great way to live your life day to day saying like this is what i hope will happen oh this is what did happen now i'm more tuned into what it might happen tomorrow oh now more tuned into what happened today and again and it's just a really nice loop so was there a connection between what you hoped would happen did you manage to do your highlight if so what helped you do it what worked or didn't work what made it hard it might be an energy thing that suggests a tweak to when you drink coffee or [1:24:13] You know, if you take a walk or whatever, it might be it might have been a focus thing. So maybe I'll try another barrier for this thing because that undercut me, whatever it is. It's just basically, in summary, curiosity about your day instead of self-judgment about your day. [1:24:29] I think we've covered... [1:24:30] make time and tons of depth if people want to practice these things highly recommend getting the book it's called make time and it's really quick to read and it's basically just a long list [1:24:42] of things you can do. And we talked about a lot of them. There's a lot more. And I think part of the premise of the book is try stuff. See what works, see what doesn't. Keep reflecting, iterating.

[1:24:50] some of these things, like even if you find two things that change how productive you are, that's a huge win. I highly recommend people get the book. That's great. And it's our best attempt to put together like a how to guide for doing this stuff. We're not, for what it's worth, we're not really motivated to try to create like a self-improvement empire. This is not our full-time jobs. We just hope it works for you and is useful. [1:25:20] Check out some of the experiments and things that are available there. Or just try one or two of the things that we talked about today. Try the highlight. If you're going to do one thing, just try right now writing down what you want your highlight to be, either for today or if it's late in the day for tomorrow, on a sticky note, and put it somewhere that you'll see it tomorrow. Just that is a great step in the right direction. Try having a conversation with your colleagues or putting a signature or an autoresponder in your mail [1:25:50] you're going to slow down or talking to them about slowing down. [1:25:53] At Character at RVC Fund, we [1:25:55] had a conversation and decided, "We're going to try to have our main communication happen in Notion." So that if we're talking about something, it's in a form, it becomes a document, and the expectation of how you react and respond there is going to be different than in a tool that's designed to get you responding as fast as possible, like an email inbox or Slack. [1:26:17] Just have a conversation about that. [1:26:19] take a couple apps off your phone. You don't have to buy the book or become totally bought into the system to do those things, but that's what we really want. We just want you to have more time for what matters for you. Amazing. I've used up basically all our time talking about make time. I think we should have a follow-up episode just to talk about Sprint. What I think we do is let's cut off the lightning round and whatever stuff you guys would have shared there, we'll include in the show notes. I'll send you those questions.

[1:26:47] asynchronously, but let's just talk about Sprint for a few minutes just to give people a sense of what is this framework. It's extremely popular, it's led to a lot of really successful products, and then we'll wrap up and point people in the direction that you recommend. [1:26:59] Cool. [1:27:00] What is this framework of Sprint? When do people use this idea, this framework, this approach? [1:27:05] And what are some examples of what has come out of somebody applying sprints? [1:27:10] The big idea with a design sprint is to go from a zero to a prototype and a test of that prototype in just five days. And it's a recipe. It's a scripted set of activities that we developed over a number of many years. I first started with some projects I was doing at Google, and I run some experiments with the way I was working. I was a product designer on Gmail in the 2000s, and I also co-founded Google Meet. [1:27:40] week where we really catalyzed what had been a project that was going nowhere, this 20% project for people who are familiar with Google, like a side project, was going nowhere for a year and a half. It was really like on the rocks. And in one focused week working together, we decided, me and these two other folks, [1:27:57] clear everything off. I visited them in the Stockholm office where they were. We created a prototype, a working prototype, instead of trying to come up with the perfect plan, the perfect PRD, the perfect pitch to executives. We're like, let's just build a prototype and put it in front of our colleagues and get them using it. And we did that, and that was the thing that stuck. And so from there on, I was like, I need to recreate these kinds of moments for teams because that's powerful. So we ran hundreds of these at Google Ventures with startups, tweaked and refined the process,

[1:28:27] ... [1:28:28] We run a venture fund today, John and I, and our colleague Eli called Character. [1:28:33] We help teams find and expand product market fit with Sprint. It's a tool for doing that. And it uses a lot of these principles we talked about with Make Time to change the defaults, but not just the defaults of the way an individual works, but the ways teams work, the way people make decisions, the way we evaluate what's a good idea, a good strategy, and worth pursuing. [1:28:57] based not on just a hunch or a guess, but based on something we can actually see with customer reactions. So all of that kind of in a nutshell is what a Sprint is. This idea of [1:29:09] getting unstuck and turning... [1:29:11] maybe some abstract ideas or some concepts that you've been discussing, turning that into a concrete prototype, something that you can look at and you can [1:29:20] You can click around and you can actually try [1:29:23] um, [1:29:24] It's it's [1:29:26] It works in a lot of different contexts. And we've heard amazing stories from people who read the book and have run sprints at [1:29:33] companies that have 100,000 people and governments and all sorts of different organizations. [1:29:39] But, [1:29:40] the [1:29:41] The stories that are in Sprint are about working with startups, and we think this is especially valuable for startups because, [1:29:49] typically you've raised a certain amount of money, which buys you a certain amount of runway. You have a certain amount of time to kind of, [1:29:55] prove that you have product market fit to prove that the thing that you're

[1:30:00] making is the right thing for some customers. [1:30:03] And so the faster you can do that, the more quickly you can find out if you're on the right track. [1:30:09] the more quickly you can learn and you can course correct, and ultimately you can get to a better place faster [1:30:14] than if you spent months working on that prototype or that first version of the product before releasing it. [1:30:22] I think what's awesome about it is as a product manager, the idea of containing a new idea experiment to like five days versus like this ongoing. [1:30:30] Teams distracted on this idea, just like, cool, we're going to spend a week, see where this goes. We're not going to spend months exploring. We're not going to talk about it just in theory. Let's just try it. [1:30:38] I think it's really powerful. And so for folks that may want to explore this until we do a follow up episode, [1:30:44] Is it just by the book? Is there anything else you could point them to to think about this idea and implementing it? [1:30:48] Yeah, well, if you are thinking about or in the very early stages of starting a company, a great thing to do is to get in touch with us, character.vc. And actually, we're just opening up applications to our labs program. So character.vc slash labs. Our labs program is an intensive program. [1:31:08] program for startups and we will run a sequence of sprints including some new formats that are not in the book but are excellent and we've been this will be our [1:31:20] Third time running through this, we found that [1:31:23] it's especially valuable for AI startups. So it just turns out that a lot of the complex issues you have to figure out with turning something that

[1:31:33] may not initially be trustworthy, may require a big behavior shift to customers who aren't used to working in this way. And sometimes artificial intelligence can produce things that feel kind of alien to people. And so making this stuff actually useful more than just a chat bot with little stars that's in the corner that says, hey, would you like to ask the question about this, but something that's really meaningful? [1:31:55] doing this kind of repeated, and we'd run a sequence of sprints, doing it again and again. We work directly with John and I. We find a really powerful way to get started. Anyway, that's a big advertisement for Character Labs. But yeah, in general, check out the book. Also, I would say if you're not quite ready to [1:32:14] dip your toe in the whole book, you can go to thesprintbook.com, and we have a ton of resources on there, including a new thing, which is a [1:32:21] a Miro board, a Miro template that I created that has step-by-step instructions for every single step as well as 30 plus videos of me explaining each step and Actually, I think I'm wearing the same sweatshirt in those so if you're watching this on YouTube, you see you can see more of me in this sweatshirt in that in that template But and that's free. That's free and there's a bunch of resources on the website that are free as well So anybody everybody should be able to access this stuff. Amazing and again [1:32:51] for folks that may want to check out the lab's [1:32:54] cohort, is there anything in us, anything other than AI oriented that would be ideal? Like just, [1:32:59] How early stage, any other markets that are ideal for the sprint process and the way you're approaching it?

[1:33:04] Yeah, it's a four-week sprint program for pre-seed software startups. So we only invest in software startups at Character. [1:33:14] And this program is really ideal for companies who [1:33:19] kind of know, they know what they're doing, right? They're not just like, oh, I want to start a company. They have an idea of an opportunity that exists, a market that they're focused on. [1:33:28] but they... [1:33:29] They definitely haven't reached product market fit. They may not even have a product to test that hypothesis with. [1:33:36] So it's very early stage and we're pretty flexible on kind of the [1:33:43] the sector, the industry that you're in, but what we find is that [1:33:46] the more there's kind of a big... [1:33:50] behavioral risk, the better this stuff works. So if you're just trying to make a slightly better version of something that already exists and maybe it's going to be a little cheaper, a little faster, a little easier to use, you probably don't need this stuff. You can probably just do it and [1:34:05] probably going to work, but [1:34:06] If you're like one of our portfolio companies, [1:34:10] They make AI that controls the industrial facilities. They came from Google DeepMind and they did this for Google data centers before. Something like that where you have to convince [1:34:22] Plant operators who are wearing hard hats and dealing with huge equipment, you have to convince them to trust AI. [1:34:30] That's a big behavior shift. That's a big behavioral risk. Or in healthcare, in education, places where it feels like the technology can really make a big difference for people, but it can be hard to get over that hurdle of trust and understanding.

[1:34:45] Those are the types of opportunities that we think we can really help with. [1:34:49] Playing on hard mode. These sounds are extremely difficult. I love it. [1:34:53] So if you're thinking about starting a company or if you're in the process of starting a company, check out character.bc slash labs. [1:35:01] John, Jake, thank you so much for being here and for making time for this podcast. Thank you for having us. This was great. Yeah, thanks for having us. Absolutely. My pleasure. It was really a pleasure, Winnie. The pleasure is mine. [1:35:12] Bye, everyone.