John Zeratsky

Co-creator of Design Sprint and Foundation Sprint at Character Capital

Co-creator of the Design Sprint and Foundation Sprint, co-founder of Character Capital venture firm, author of Sprint and Click, previously at Google Ventures and Google where he was a leader on Google Ads and YouTube, has worked with over 300 teams to help them find product-market fit through structured sprint methodologies.

The Craftsperson The Scientist 2 appearances

Dimension Profile

Strategic Vision 60%

Execution & Craft 78%

Data & Experimentation 51%

Growth & Distribution 26%

Team & Leadership 46%

User Empathy & Research 56%

Key Themes

Make Time productivity framework changing defaults versus adding willpower infinity pools and busy bandwagon intentional time design productivity as putting important things first sustainable systems over hacks

Episode Summary

John Zeratsky explains the Make Time framework's insight that people always know what they want to make time for but can't because the busy bandwagon and infinity pools create a bad flywheel. He argues that most productivity advice makes the problem worse by focusing on going faster at reactive tasks, and that the real solution is changing your defaults to put the most important thing first, creating a sustainable system you can return to rather than grasping for one-off hacks.

Leadership Principles

→ People always know what they want to make time for — the problem is not figuring out what to do, it's actually making time for those things
→ Most productivity advice focuses on cranking through what's already in front of you — flip it by putting the most important thing first and building everything else around it
→ Infinity pools are endlessly replenishing founts of content — if you can pull to refresh or it streams, it's designed to take advantage of your defaults

Notable Quotes

"People always know what they want to make time for. The problem is not what should my goal be. They usually know, but it's very hard to actually make time for those things."
— On why the challenge isn't identifying priorities but protecting time for them

"If you can pull to refresh or if it streams, it's an infinity pool. Email is a huge infinity pool and it's probably the single hardest thing for the two of us to control."
— On defining infinity pools and why they're so powerful

"Having a framework gives you a path back. If you're grasping for hacks, you might have short-term effects, but you'll fall back into overwhelm and burnout."
— On why sustainable systems beat one-off productivity tricks

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