John Zeratsky

Writer and Designer in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

JOHN has written for the Wall Street Journal, Time, Harvard Business Review, Wired, Fast Company, and many more publications. For nearly fifteen years, he was a designer at technology companies, including YouTube and Google Ventures. Originally from Wisconsin, John and his wife now live aboard their sailboat, “Pineapple.”

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Make Time

How to Focus on What Matters Every Day

by Jake Knapp, John Zeratsky

Want to Make Time? Well, Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky (JZ) have the system to help you, as per the sub-title of their great book: “Focus on What Matters Every Day.’ Jake and JZ met at Google. Jake had worked on Gmail and JZ on YouTube before they connected at Google Ventures. While there, they worked with a ton of startups in which Google invested (including Uber, Slack and 23andMe) on a project-development system they created called “Sprint.” This book is all about resetting our culture’s default settings by stepping off of what they call “the Busy Bandwagon” while jumping out of “Infinity Pools” of distraction to optimize our energy, focus, and time. It’s a GREAT book that echoes a ton of what we talk about all the time. Big Ideas we explore include how to make time in four steps: Highlight (what's today's focal point?) + Laser (vs. disco balls) + Energize (be a good Homo sapien) + Reflect (it's all one big experiment!).

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4 Steps: Highlight + Laser + Energize + Reflect

Make Time by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky is a great book. It falls into the “Alexandra Amazon-ed it and I immediately swiped it and read it” category along many other books including, most recently, The 5 Second Rule by Mel Robbins. Jake and John (he goes by JZ in the book) met at Google Ventures wh...

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Bring the Lab into Your Life

In our last +1, we talked about Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky’s 4-step process to Make Time and Focus on What Matters Every Day. Pop quiz!!! You remember the four steps? 1. Highlight. Know your #1? 2. Laser: Eliminate distractions! 3. Energize: Charge the battery! 4. Reflect: Experiment and Optimize! To...

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It Can Be a Full-Time Job (Is It Yours?)

In our last couple +1s, we’ve been having fun hanging out with Jake and JZ and their wisdom on how to Make Time. Today we’re going to talk about what Destroys Time for a lot people. Reminder: These guys LOVE technology. Jake helped build Gmail. JZ helped build YouTube. Then, together, they he...

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How Many Times Will You Today?

In our last few +1s, we’ve been talking about how to Make Time. We talked about Jake and JZ’s four steps to rocking it: Highlight (know the #1 thing you’ll do to make Today awesome) + Laser (eliminate distractions so you can focus on that thing like a laser) + Energize (take care of your body so yo...

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Installing a Portable Chronometer on Your Wrist

Continuing our trip through Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky’s brilliant brains and equally brilliant book Make Time, Today we’re going to have fun with a little history lesson combined with a super-simple way to start chipping away at all those twitchy smartphone touches. (I still can’t believe the av...

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Remove the Distraction-Asteroids from Your Life

Wrapping up our fun tour through the brilliant life-design system called “Make Time” created by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky, let’s talk about what they call “time craters.” “Time craters”? Yep. They tell us that when one of them was a kid, they went on a family vacation to Arizona where th...

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Decades of Work to Tell Time

Not too long ago, we enjoyed a nice little tour through the great book Make Time. As part of that fun adventure, we briefly talked about the guy who invented the first super-precise watch in response to a challenge issued by British government in the 1700s. We quoted Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky who told...

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John Zeratsky

Writer and Designer in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

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