Make Time at Work

Helping leaders, entrepreneurs, and professional teams make better use of their time at work and become happier, more engaged humans.

You and your team have important work to do.

But these days, it’s difficult to find the time to really focus on the work that needs to be done.

Often, it feels like we spend all day reacting—to email, chat, interruptions, meetings, and busy work. The important work gets squeezed around the edges of these reactions.

Turns out it doesn’t just feel that way. Studies show that knowledge workers spend 40–60% of their day on administrative work. Not the work itself. Not the part that matters. Not the essential efforts that create value and make things better.

Most days, we spend less than half our time on real work that makes a difference.

If you’re an employee, contractor, or individual contributor, that’s a serious problem.

But if you’re a leader, manager, or executive, it’s a crisis.

Time is More Important Than Ever

In every industry, the nature of work is changing:

• Technology is making jobs leveraged and automated. Your team’s uniquely human skills and capabilities are becoming more valuable as rote work is mechanized and scaled.
• Companies are becoming remote. With distributed teams, you can’t enforce good work practices with office culture or physical presence. Everybody needs to manage their own time.
• Business is speeding up. Rapid prototyping, just-in-time manufacturing, and digital marketing mean it’s more important than ever for your team to make good use of your time.
• Soft skills are growing in demand. Hard skill requirements change and are relatively easy to train. Smart businesses are equipping and empowering their employees with abilities that never become obsolete.

We Can Help You Make Time for the Work That Matters

Over the past 20 years, we have helped more 200 organizations reset the defaults of business as usual so they can make time for the work that matters.

We have made these changes from the inside, as colleagues, managers, and entrepreneurs, and from the outside, as consultants, workshop facilitators, and keynote speakers.

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At Google Ventures, we created the Design Sprint, which helps teams focus together on solutions to their biggest problems and opportunities. We have run more than 150 Design Sprints with organizations like Google, Harvard University, and Slack. By changing the defaults of how teams work, we can help them explore and validate solutions in just five days instead of weeks or months. We wrote the global bestseller Sprint, and now the process is being used by thousands of teams around the world.

We translated lessons from the Design Sprint into a simple framework for everyday life. It’s called Make Time, and it helps busy professionals reclaim their time energy and attention so they can actually make time for the work that matters every day. Our 2018 book Make Time was a rallying cry for a new class of professionals who are rethinking the defaults of constant busyness and distraction.

In 2020, we partnered with facilitator and coach Connor Swenson to help us bring Make Time into organizations around the world. Connor draws on seven years of experience at Google, where he taught internal programs on productivity, mindfulness, and emotional intelligence. He’s a certified teacher of Make Time as well as the Search Inside Yourself program developed at Google.

We believe that the defaults of work are broken. We put reaction before action. We play defense, not offense. We spend too much time on work about work and not enough time on the things that matter.

Fortunately, you can reset the defaults and help your team structure their days around work that makes a difference.

How We Help

Based on our work with the Design Sprint and Make Time, and more than 20 years changing organizational defaults from the inside and out, we have developed three programs for helping your team find better, smarter ways to work.

All programs provide:

• Options for online or offline format
• Real changes that stick; not a one-time session
• Personalized approach to finding what works
• Methods proven at more than 200 companies
• Lessons based in experience and validated by research

Each engagement is customized for the needs and goals of the event and audience. If you don’t see exactly what you’re looking for here, please send us a note and we can talk about it.

Client Testimonials

“John Zeratsky provided university faculty and staff with a highly engaging and immersive learning experience that shifted the defaults of how we work. John is truly one of the top facilitators we’ve worked with.”

Erik Skogsberg, Michigan State University

“Jake Knapp inspired an audience of 300 medical executives to rethink their approach to care transformation. It’s rare to leave a presentation with a new approach that can be rapidly applied to your work.”

Ralph Pascualy, Swedish Medical Group

“Connor Swenson is a passionate speaker and facilitator who knows what he’s talking about. His style of delivery is approachable and engaging, he makes complex topics simple and accessible, and he leaves his audience with practical lessons they can take away. One of the nicest guys and best instructors I’ve ever had at Google.”

Laura Gonzalez, Google

“We worked with John to offer a unique workshop experience for our most valued clients. Participants left with a new set of tools and processes that will help them make good use of their time in the future.”

Lani Beer, King & Wood Mallesons

“We brought John in to coach our leadership team on how to work less, do more, and be happier. Highly recommended for leadership teams of all shapes and sizes.”

Jesse DePinto, Frontdesk

“Jake was by far our best keynote speaker in a long time. He brings so much value.”

Gartner Catalyst Conference

Start the Process

Interested in working with us? Get in touch below. We’ll respond within 24 hours and begin the process of designing an engagement to help your team make time for what matters.