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

... so it's not really about productivity. It's not about time management. It's really just about, look, 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 when, it's not gonna 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 asks 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 day as you still feel really good about the way you're spending your energy.

(instrumental music) Today, I've got two guests, Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky. Jake and John are authors of two incredible books, Sprint and Make Time. With Sprint, they've helped more than 300 teams design new products and bring them to market, including teams at YouTube, Slack, Gusto, and One Medical. 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, which you can learn more about at character.bc/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 we get into a ton of very practical pieces of advice for how you can be more 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 Zeratsky 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 in my career, and this is the Sidebar ethos. 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. Guided by world-class programming and facilitation, Sidebar enables 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 companies like Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta by visiting sidebar.com/lenny. That's sidebar.com/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, and keep your team aligned with one source of truth for all of 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/lenny for 20% off a Whimsical pro plan. That's whimsical.com/lenny. Jake and John, thank you so much for being here and welcome to the podcast.