Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day
Contains pretty much everything we know about slowing down, finding focus, and making time in daily life. You can read Make Time in print or ebook format, or listen to us read it as an audiobook! Available in 15 languages.
Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days
Sprint is not just about our 5-day design sprint process—it’s about replacing the crazy defaults of modern work with a process that’s focused, face-to-face, and thoughtful.
Books We Recommend
We’ve read all of these books—most of them a few times—and each has had a big impact on how we think about time, energy, and life.
The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin
This book will make you happier. You would be crazy not to read it.
Brain Rules by John Medina
A fun and fast overview of brain science, easy to understand and easy to remember.
Deep Work by Cal Newport
Packed with opinionated and often unusual strategies for doing focused work.
The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss
Tim is a superhuman and we’re not, but we still learned a lot from this book.
Getting Things Done by David Allen
A seriously intense organization system. We’ve fallen off the wagon more times than we can count, but even if we’re not GTDers anymore, David Allen’s philosophy is still with us.
The Power of Moments by Chip and Dan Heath
The Heath brothers explain why moments have an outsize influence on our lives, then show how you can engineer great moments in yours. Read this book and tackle your Highlights with vigor.
The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
Use this as a guide for converting Make Time tactics into long-term habits.
Mindset by Carol Dweck
Habits are very powerful, but sometimes you need a mindset shift to change your behavior.
In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan
There’s no better guide to building energy by eating real food.
Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
Many of the Make Time tactics are based on the idea of learning from ancient humans. Sapiens is a detailed, remarkable history of, well… humans.
Work Optional by Tanja Hester
A practical and inspiring guide to rethinking work, money, and time at the deepest levels.
A Guide to the Good Life by William B. Irvine
A very accessible introduction to Stoic philosophy. Like Make Time, Stoicism is a daily system with tactics for living life—but it’s more than 2,000 years old.
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