Make Time by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky: a remote worker's guide

Some productivity books make an argument. Make Time by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky mostly hands you a routine. That makes it one of the easier books to put into practice in a home office, where nobody else sets the shape of your day.

Cover of Make Time — Cover of *Make Time*. Cover via Open Library; cover art belongs to the publisher.

The short answer

Make Time is built around a four-step daily loop: Highlight, Laser, Energize, Reflect. The book's site says it includes more than 87 tactics, and that the authors worked on products such as Gmail and YouTube, which is partly why the book is so aware of how apps compete for attention. If you want one change to try tomorrow, this is a good choice.

Who it is for

Remote workers whose days are busy but whose most important task keeps slipping.
Job seekers who need one meaningful task a day, like a tailored application or interview prep, to actually happen.
Readers who dislike theory and want short, testable tactics.

The four steps, in plain words

Highlight. Each day, choose one thing that matters most. It does not have to be the biggest task on your list. The point is to decide on purpose, before the day decides for you.
Laser. Protect focus for the highlight by making distractions harder to reach. The book's tactics here are about phones, inboxes and notifications.
Energize. Look after the body so the brain has fuel: movement, food, rest and time away from screens.
Reflect. At the end of the day, note what worked and what did not, and adjust the tactics you try next.

Making it work from home

These are our suggestions for adapting the loop to remote work:

Pick the highlight before opening chat. Once messages arrive, other people's priorities take over.
Book it. Put the highlight on your calendar as a block. If your team spans time zones, choose hours with little overlap; our guide to scheduling across time zones helps you find them.
Laser with the room, not only the apps. A door, a set desk, and headphones for background noise all help.
Energize with movement. Without a commute, it is easy to sit for ten hours. Stand for some calls, take a walk at lunch.
Reflect in two lines. A note at the end of the day also works as a shutdown ritual, so work stops when you close the laptop.

A daily highlight for job seekers

A job search has an endless supply of small tasks. Choosing one highlight a day, such as "rewrite the CV summary for data roles" or "prepare three stories for the interview on Thursday", keeps you moving. Leave browsing for a short separate window; our remote jobs page updates daily, so once a day is enough.

Choosing tactics without overdoing it

With more than 87 tactics in the book, the risk is trying all of them in the first week and keeping none. A gentler approach, in our words:

Pick one Laser tactic that removes a specific distraction you already know about, such as logging out of email during the highlight.
Pick one Energize tactic that fits your home, such as a short walk before you start.
Run both for a week, and use the Reflect step to decide whether to keep them.
Add one new tactic at a time, only when the last one feels automatic.

This keeps the system light. The book itself encourages experimenting and dropping what does not work, which is the right attitude for remote routines that change with every new project or team.

When to skip it

You want depth over tactics. Deep Work builds a stronger argument for why focus matters.
Your schedule is not yours. If you are on shifts or on call, a daily highlight helps, but many tactics assume control of your calendar.
You dislike list-style books. Make Time is designed to be dipped into; if you want a single narrative, it may feel scattered.

The verdict

The highlight alone is worth the read. Choosing one task a day, deliberately, is simple enough to survive a messy remote week, and it gives you something concrete to point to when a day full of calls ends.

The Amazon link for Make Time is the first card under Further reading below, with a few books that pair well with it.

FAQ

What are the four steps in Make Time?

Highlight, Laser, Energize and Reflect: pick one priority, focus on it, keep your energy up, and look back at the end of the day.

How many tactics are in the book?

The book's site says it includes more than 87 tactics. You are meant to try a few, not all of them.

Who wrote Make Time?

Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky. The book's site says they worked on products including Gmail and YouTube.

Is Make Time better than Deep Work?

They suit different readers. Deep Work makes the case for focus; Make Time gives you a daily routine and a menu of tactics.

Sources

All links opened and checked on 10 Nov 2026. Figures are as published by each source on the date shown; we did not run our own benchmarks.

Make Time: the book's official site, checked 5 Nov 2026