energy management

Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky are the authors of best-selling books Sprint and Make Time. They have helped more than 300 teams design new products and bring them to market, including those at YouTube, Gusto, One Medical Group, and Slack. Jake and John are co-founders of the venture capital firm Character, where they support startups with capital and sprints. Previously, they were operating partners at Google Ventures and, before that, design leaders at Google, where John worked on Google Ads and YouTube and Jake helped build Gmail and co-founded Google Meet. In our conversation, we discuss:

• “Busy bandwagon” and “infinity pools”

• Creating one “highlight” each day

• Their four-part framework for productivity

• How to use the calendar to design your day

• How creating friction can help you avoid distractions

• Tips on creating a distraction-free phone

• Strategies for managing email and distractions

• The importance of reflecting on the day and making time for meaningful work

• Design sprints

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Brought to you by:

• Sidebar—Accelerate your career by surrounding yourself with extraordinary peers

• Whimsical—The iterative product workspace

• WorkOS—The modern API for auth and user identity

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Find the full transcript at: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/making-time-for-what-matters-jake-knapp-and-john-zeratsky-authors-of-sprint-and-make-time-co-fou/

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Where to find Jake Knapp:

• X: https://twitter.com/jakek

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jake-knapp/

• Website: https://jakeknapp.com/

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Where to find John Zeratsky:

• X: https://twitter.com/jazer

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnzeratsky/

• Website: https://johnzeratsky.com/

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Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com

• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/

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In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) About Jake and John

(04:10) Recording the audiobook for Make Time

(06:06) What people often get wrong when trying to become more productive

(11:24) The busy bandwagon and infinity pools

(15:22) Real talk: Jake and John’s productivity levels

(20:10) The four-part framework for getting more done: Highlight, Laser, Energize, Reflect

(25:15) Step 1: Highlight

(28:08) Designing your day with a calendar

(30:52) The Groundhog Day mentality

(35:10) Tactical advice for implementing the highlight method

(39:30) An example of a failed highlight

(48:08) Step 2: Laser

(51:12) Creating intentional friction to avoid distractions

(57:28) Curating a distraction-free phone

(01:07:58) Resetting expectations and slowing your inbox

(01:14:51) Systems over willpower

(01:18:14) Managing email distractions

(01:18:49) Step 3: Energize

(01:22:05) Step 4: Reflect

(01:26:30) Introduction to Sprint

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Referenced:

• Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day: https://www.amazon.com/Make-Time-Focus-Matters-Every/dp/0525572422

• Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days: https://www.amazon.com/Sprint-audiobook/dp/B019R2DQIY

• Make Time blog: https://maketime.blog/

• Make Time blog on X: https://twitter.com/maketimeblog

• Character: https://www.character.vc/

• Google Ventures: https://www.gv.com/

• Character Labs: https://www.character.vc/labs

• Strategies for becoming less distracted and improving focus | Nir Eyal (author of Indistractable and Hooked): https://www.lennyspodcast.com/strategies-for-becoming-less-distracted-and-improving-focus-nir-eyal-author-of-indistractable-and/

• Groundhog Day on Prime Video: https://www.amazon.com/Groundhog-Day-Bill-Murray/dp/B000SP1SH6

• Reclaim.ai: https://reclaim.ai/

• Feed Blocker for LinkedIn: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/feed-blocker-for-linkedin/eikaafmldiioljlilngpogcepiedpenf

• The Lord of the Rings: https://www.amazon.com/Lord-Rings-J-R-R-Tolkien/dp/0544003411

• MagSafe charger: https://www.amazon.com/Apple-MHXH3AM-A-MagSafe-Charger/dp/B08L5NP6NG/

• Nanit app: https://www.nanit.com/pages/nanit-app

• Arianna Huffington’s Phone Bed Charging Station: https://www.amazon.com/Arianna-Huffingtons-Charging-Station-Walnut/dp/B0799ZG1LY

• Cell Phone Lock Box with Timer: https://www.amazon.com/Portable-Android-Self-Discipline-Achieve-Addiction/dp/B0CG8V4YG3?th=1

• The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich: https://www.amazon.com/4-Hour-Workweek-Escape-Live-Anywhere/dp/0307465357

• The Economist: https://www.economist.com/

• Odysseus: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Odysseus

• Mailman: https://www.mailmanhq.com/

• Future: https://www.future.co/

• Notion: https://www.notion.so/

• Miro: https://miro.com/

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Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.

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Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.

This episode is brought to you by Rupa Health, Pendulum, BiOptimizers, and Levels.

Most of us are faced with endless pressures of work and family and a relentless barrage of tasks, to-dos, and requests, all while trying to manage our health, nutrition, and sleep. It’s easy to become overwhelmed, exhausted, anxious, and burnt out. Feeling like crap has become pervasive in our society. In fact, in 2019, the World Health Organization added “burnout” as a diagnosable medical condition. 

Today on The Doctor’s Farmacy, I’m excited to talk to Dr. Neha Sangwan about how to recover from any stage of burnout and build a life founded on a healthy body, mind, and spirit.

Dr. Sangwan is an internal medicine physician, the CEO and founder of Intuitive Intelligence, and an international speaker and corporate communication expert. Her private practice and corporate consulting focus on empowering individuals, organizational leaders, and their teams with the tools for clear, effective communication. She addresses the root causes of stress, miscommunication, and interpersonal conflict, often healing chronic conditions such as headaches, insomnia, anxiety, depression, and burnout. She is also the author of, Powered by Me: From Burned Out to Fully Charged At Work and In Life.

This episode is brought to you by Rupa Health, Pendulum, BiOptimizers, and Levels.

Access more than 3,000 specialty lab tests with Rupa Health. Check out a free, live demo with a Q&A or create an account at RupaHealth.com today.

Pendulum is offering my listeners 20% off their first month of an Akkermansia subscription with code HYMAN at Pendulumlife.com.

This month only you can get a FREE bottle of Bioptimizers Magnesium Breakthrough. Just go to magbreakthrough.com/hymanfree and enter coupon code hyman10.

Levels is offering an additional two free months of their annual membership. Head over to levels.link/HYMAN to learn more.

Here are more details from our interview (audio version / Apple Subscriber version):

• Defining burnout and what causes it (5:35 / 3:38) 
• Three levels of burnout (11:38 / 9:42) 
• Exercises to asses areas of burnout in your life (14:31 / 12:35)
• My personal experience with burnout (28:05 / 23:58) 
• Recovering from burnout (40:42 / 36:11) 
• Getting out of acute burnout (45:13 / 40:49) 
• Setting healthy boundaries to prevent and recover from burnout (48:14 / 43:43) 
• Overcoming mind traps that keep us stuck in burnout (57:17 / 52:56) 
• How Dr. Sangwan stays fully charged and avoids burnout (1:03:32 / 59:12) 

Check out the free burnout assessment tool at intuitiveintelligenceinc.com/burnout-rx. Get a copy of Dr. Sangwan’s book, Powered by Me: From Burned Out to Fully Charged at Work and in Life.

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On VC Sunday School, Jason and Molly discuss how VCs size their investments (1:40). Then, Molly is joined by Ben Birnbaum of Keyframe and TeraWatt! (13:17)

(0:00) Molly tees up today's topics!

(1:40) Jason breaks down how VCs think about bet sizing!

(11:43) OpenPhone - Get an extra 20% off any plan for your first 6 months at https://openphone.com/twist 

(13:17) Molly welcomes Ben Birnbaum of TeraWatt and Keyframe to discuss his background and why he started TeraWatt!

(27:07) Odoo - Get access to all of Odoo's apps, services, and maintenance for under $25 at https://odoo.com/twist 

(28:15) Ben explains the current state of commercial EVs and TeraWatt's progress

(34:05) How TeraWatt spawned Keyframe, where Ben is an investment partner

(38:20) House of Macadamias - Get 20% off at https://houseofmacadamias.com/twist by using code TWIST20

(39:47) Ben explains how and why he started an investment firm to fund his own startup (and startups like it!)

Check out TeraWatt: https://terawattinfrastructure.com

Check out Keyframe: https://www.keyframecapital.com

FOLLOW Jason: https://linktr.ee/calacanis

FOLLOW Molly: https://twitter.com/mollywood

Subscribe to our YouTube to watch all full episodes:

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This week’s guest is Dr Tamara Rosier, author of one of my favourite ADHD books, Your Brain's Not Broken.

Tamara has been a college administrator, a professor, a leadership consultant, a high school teacher, a national public speaker, and an ADHD coach. Through those adventures, Dr Rosier has developed valuable insight into ADHD and how it affects one’s life. As founder of the ADHD Center of West Michigan, she helps individuals, parents, and families develop an understanding and learn effective skills to live with ADHD effectively. Her book, Your Brain’s Not Broken, provides strategies for navigating the powerful big emotional aspect of ADHD in a healthy way. 

During this week's episode, we spoke about 

• Our big emotions, being embarrassed and the shame we have around our emotional regulation
• How to regulate our overwhelming emotions
• Prefrontal cortex 'butler' - how it calms and helps with sequencing
• Limbic centre being our anger, frustration controller
• 'Living on the grid' - four quadrants, solve it grid
• Burnout from constantly being in the red zone
• Making intentional choices to help our health and stress management. Such as diary management, delegating our butler tasks and borrowing people’s butler (neuro typical) brains
• Learning not to cram and live fueled by adrenaline and cortisol
• The importance of prioritising deep cleansing sleep
• Sleep is so important for our health - ADHD symptoms are exacerbated when we don't sleep enough.
• Learning to relax and transition from a busy day to downtime and sleep.

You can connect with Dr Rosier via her website, miadhd.com or her Instagram account. 

The quadrant that Dr Rosier references within the episode.

Kate Moryoussef is a women’s ADHD Lifestyle & Wellbeing coach and EFT practitioner helping overwhelmed yet unfulfilled (many with ADHD like her) women find more calm, balance, health, compassion, creativity and clarity in their lives. 

Kate's new membership, The ADHD Women's Wellbeing Collective is now officially OPEN! To read more and join, click here!

By using Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT/tapping) in her coaching practice, Kate guides more ADHD women to rediscover their inner voice, 'tap' into their expansive wisdom and potential, fulfil their desires and realise themselves outside of the overwhelm, inner pressure and family dynamic. She is also a mum to four children and will shortly be writing her first book!

To buy Kate's pre-recorded ADHD workshops  click here

Have a read of Kate’s articles in ADDitude magazine...

If you feel anxious or down at any time, this process will help you feel better in the moment while being able to identify if there is anything that you can do right now to feel better.

Follow me on IG for more inspiration here: https://www.instagram.com/robdialjr/

If you live in the US/Canada and you want to receive motivational texts from me, text me now at 1-512-580-9305 or click here https://my.community.com/robdial

Mentioned in this episode:

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Episodes For Your Situation

When you think of your assets, you probably think of your money. But you also have three other hugely important assets at your disposal too: your time, energy, and priorities. When you manage these assets poorly, you can feel overwhelmed and scattered and yet unproductive and unfulfilled. When you manage them well, things in your personal and professional life click, and you experience traction and satisfaction.

How do you avoid the first situation and achieve the second? My guest today, Carey Nieuwhof, provides answers in his book At Your Best: How to Get Time, Priorities, and Energy Working in Your Favor. We begin our conversation with Carey's story of achieving success, only to suffer burnout, and how burnout has become less of a job problem these days than a general life problem. We then talk about how to leave what Carey calls the "stress spiral" and get into the "thrive cycle." We discuss the two mental shifts you need to make to better manage your time, how to keep other people (and yourself) from hijacking your priorities, the power of categorical decision-making in separating the good from the best, and why you need to put even your personal commitments on your calendar. We also talk about scheduling your daily tasks into what Carey calls your green, yellow, and red energy zones, and how to spend your time more strategically.

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If you want to be more productive, introduce these 6 habits into your daily routine!

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Do your days seem like a continuous blur of busyness, and yet you don't seem to get much done, nor remember much about how you spent your time?

As a former employee of Google, my guest today worked on the very apps and technology that can often suck away our time. Today, he's dedicated to figuring out how to push back against these forces to help people take control of their time and attention.

His name is John Zeratsky and he’s the co-author of the book Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day. Today on the show, John shares how the experience of feeling like he was missing months of his life led him to spending years experimenting with his habits and routines, looking for the best ways to to optimize energy, focus, and time. He then shares the simple 4-step daily framework that developed from this research and walks us through that system. John talks about choosing one “highlight" each day to ensure your most important work gets done and that your life is full of memorable moments. He also shares how to reduce the time you spend wading in what he calls “infinity pools,” why energy management is just as important as time management, and how reflection is essential in figuring out if what you're doing is working.

Lots of valuable direction in this show for how to get your life on track and find more hours and meaning in the day.

Get the show notes at aom.is/maketime.