Book Reviews
Make Time Summary & Review: Design Your Day Around What Matters
Make Time by Jake Knapp & John Zeratsky gives you a 4-step daily framework — Highlight, Laser, Energize, Reflect — plus 87…
Read Summary →John Zeratsky
"The Google Ventures design partner who teamed up with Jake Knapp to turn design-sprint thinking toward everyday focus."
John Zeratsky is an American author and design partner who spent over a decade working on products at Google, YouTube, and Google Ventures before co-writing "Sprint" and "Make Time" with longtime collaborator Jake Knapp. While "Sprint" focused on solving big organizational problems quickly, Zeratsky and Knapp's follow-up, "Make Time," turned the same experimental, structured-thinking approach toward personal productivity—helping readers design each day around a single meaningful "Highlight" rather than reacting to a constant stream of distractions. Zeratsky has continued to write and speak about intentional time design, drawing on his design background to argue that most people's daily habits are shaped by default settings rather than deliberate choice.
1 book featured·Former design partner, Google Ventures·Co-authored with Jake Knapp
Books by John Zeratsky
Our in-depth summaries and reviews of his work
Key Ideas & Recurring Themes
Choose one daily Highlight
Zeratsky and Knapp argue that starting each day by choosing a single priority activity—your Highlight—creates focus that a long, undifferentiated to-do list can't.
Default settings run your day unless you intervene
Much of modern distraction, they argue, comes from accepting default technology and social settings rather than deliberately designing how you spend your time.
Every notification is a request for your time
Zeratsky frames checking email or messages as implicitly asking whether any random person's priorities should override your own in that moment.
Notable Quotes
"Every time you check your email or another message service, you're basically saying, "Does any random person need my time right now?""— Make Time
"Something magic happens when you start the day with one high-priority goal."— Make Time
"Perfection is a distraction—another shiny object taking your attention away from your real priorities."— Make Time
"You only waste time if you're not intentional about how you spend it."— Make Time
Related Authors
Book Author John Zeratsky
Make Time Summary & Review: Design Your Day Around What Matters
Make Time by Jake Knapp & John Zeratsky gives you a 4-step daily framework — Highlight, Laser, Energize, Reflect — plus 87 tactics to reclaim your attention.