Jake Knapp > Quotes

“Every time you check your email or another message service, you’re basically saying, “Does any random person need my time right now?”
― Jake Knapp, Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day

“We’ve found that magic happens when we use big whiteboards to solve problems. As humans, our short-term memory is not all that good, but our spatial memory is awesome. A sprint room, plastered with notes, diagrams, printouts, and more, takes advantage of that spatial memory. The room itself becomes a sort of shared brain for the team.”
― Jake Knapp, Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days

“something magic happens when you start the day with one high-priority goal.”
― Jake Knapp, Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day

“Perfection is a distraction—another shiny object taking your attention away from your real priorities.”
― Jake Knapp, Make Time: How to focus on what matters every day

“You only waste time if you’re not intentional about how you spend it.”
― Jake Knapp, Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day

“Believe in your Highlight: It is worth prioritizing over random disruption.”
― Jake Knapp, Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day

“When distraction is hard to access, you don’t have to worry about willpower.”
― Jake Knapp, Make Time: How to focus on what matters every day

“By asking people for their input early in the process, you help them feel invested in the outcome.”
― Jake Knapp, Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days

“Every distraction imposes a cost on the depth of your focus. When your brain changes contexts—say, going from painting a picture to answering a text and then back to painting again—there’s a switching cost. Your brain has to load a different set of rules and information into working memory. This “boot up” costs at least a few minutes, and for complex tasks, it can take even longer. The two of us have found it can take a couple of hours of uninterrupted writing before we’re doing our best work; sometimes it even requires several consecutive days before we’re in the zone.”
― Jake Knapp, Make Time: How to focus on what matters every day

“great innovation is built on existing ideas, repurposed with vision.”
― Jake Knapp, Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days

“Combine the four-plus hours the average person spends on their smartphone with the four-plus hours the average person spends watching television, and distraction is a full-time job.”
― Jake Knapp, Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day

“It’s what work should be about—not wasting time in endless meetings, then seeking camaraderie in a team-building event at a bowling alley—but working together to build something that matters to real people. This is the best use of your time. This is a sprint.”
― Jake Knapp, Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days

“We do not remember days, we remember moments. —CESARE PAVESE”
― Jake Knapp, Make Time: How to focus on what matters every day

“Shifting your focus to something that your mind perceives as a doable, completable task will create a real increase in positive energy, direction, and motivation.”
― Jake Knapp, Make Time: How to focus on what matters every day

“Good ideas are hard to find. And even the best ideas face an uncertain path to real-world success. That’s true whether you’re running a startup, teaching a class, or working inside a large organization. Execution”
― Jake Knapp, Sprint

“We’re the descendants of those ancient humans, but our species hasn’t evolved nearly as fast as the world around us has. That means we’re still wired for a lifestyle of constant movement, varied but relatively sparse diets, ample quiet, plenty of face-to-face time, and restful sleep that’s aligned with the rhythm of the day.”
― Jake Knapp, Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day

“You know the antidote to exhaustion is not necessarily rest ….
The antidote to exhaustion is wholeheartedness. —BROTHER DAVID STEINDL-RAST”
― Jake Knapp, Make Time: How to focus on what matters every day

“Being in a curiosity mindset means being fascinated by your customers and their reactions.”
― Jake Knapp, Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days

“Make Time is a framework for choosing what you want to focus on, building the energy to do it, and breaking the default cycle so that you can start being more intentional about the way you live your life. Even if you don’t completely control your own schedule—and few of us do—you absolutely can control your attention.”
― Jake Knapp, Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day

“Longer hours don't equal better results. By getting the right people together, structuring the activities, and eliminating distraction, we've found that it's possible to make rapid progress while working a reasonable schedule.”
― Jake Knapp, Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days

“Nobody knows everything, not even the CEO. Instead, the information is distributed asymmetrically across the team and across the company.”
― Jake Knapp, Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days

“That is, one new tactic to help you make time for your Highlight, one that keeps you laser-focused by changing how you react to distractions, and one for building energy—three tactics total.”
― Jake Knapp, Make Time: How to focus on what matters every day

“Lurking beneath every goal are dangerous assumptions. The longer those assumptions remain unexamined, the greater the risk.”
― Jake Knapp, Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days

“If you change your priorities, people will notice. Your actions show others what’s important to you. When your friends, your coworkers, and your kids and family see you being intentional with your time, you’ll give them permission to question their own “always on” default and step away from their own Infinity Pools.”
― Jake Knapp, Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day

“And if you respond right away, you’re sending another signal both to them and to yourself: “I’ll stop what I’m doing to put other people’s priorities ahead of mine no matter who they are or what they want.”
― Jake Knapp, Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day

“Most of Our Time Is Spent by Default Both forces—the Busy Bandwagon and the Infinity Pools—are powerful because they’ve become our defaults.”
― Jake Knapp, Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day

“When you don’t take care of your body, your brain can’t do its job. If you’ve ever felt sluggish and uninspired after a big lunch or invigorated and clearheaded after exercising, you know what we mean. If you want energy for your brain, you need to take care of your body.”
― Jake Knapp, Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day

“Have you ever spent hours churning through email and attending meetings only to realize at the end of the day that you failed to make time for the one thing you really needed to do? Well, we have. Lots of times. And whenever it happens, we feel miserable. Oh, the regret!”
― Jake Knapp, Make Time: How to focus on what matters every day

“change comes from resetting defaults, creating barriers, and beginning to design the way you spend your time.”
― Jake Knapp, Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day

“In our design sprints, we found that if we ended each workday before people were exhausted, the week’s productivity increased dramatically. Even shortening the day by thirty minutes made a big difference.”
― Jake Knapp, Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day