Making Time for What Matters
A conversation with writer, speaker and designer, John Zeratsky.
John Zeratsky began his career designing digital products, then helped develop the Design Sprint process at Google Ventures. He now writes, speaks and facilitates workshops on how we can make better use of our time to become happier and more engaged in the world around us. His book on this subject is called Make Time.
Do you see a separation line between product design and visual design?
Photo by Jessica Kaminski/The Refinery
Not a line, but a gradient.
Design is the process of figuring out what a thing should be, what it should do, how it should work, how it should look, and what it should say. Visual design is obviously an important part of that.
One mistake I see designers making is focusing on visual design too early in the process. Many of our design tools encourage this. (It’s the classic situation of “when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”)
Hear about upcoming conversations:
An important distinction is that visual fidelity is necessary and helpful throughout the design process. For example, we recommend high-fidelity prototypes in the Design Sprint because it leads to more realistic customer reactions. In that case, it’s valuable to make something look real, but it’s not necessary to >FULLY< figure out (i.e. design) the visual style at that stage.
I wrote a bit about these ideas here:
Do you still think of yourself as a designer? How has your definition of design changed or broadened?
Yes, I do.
At Google Ventures I got to work with almost 200 startups, which helped me see how design can work in a variety of industries. So I guess I’ve backed away from design as a noun (UX design, UI design, visual design, etc) and now I think of it more as a verb. We can use the processes, methods, and mindsets to design our products, businesses, processes, schedules, policies, experiences, curricula, etc. Design is like the scientific method for business—a rigorous approach to surfacing, investigating, and answering questions.
So, I definitely still see myself as a designer. These days I’m mostly designing keynote speeches, workshops, processes, frameworks. I also enjoy designing the marketing for all of my work with Design Sprints and Make Time. And I recently designed an online course, which was a totally new and fun challenge!
What has been the trickiest part of transitioning from San Francisco to Milwaukee? The best part?
FOMO :-)
Honestly, there haven’t really been any tricky or hard parts. I love my friends and family here, I love the pace of life, I love the lakefront and the neighborhoods and how accessible everything is. Sometimes I feel a bit of FOMO when I think about San Francisco—the food, the ocean, the mountains, the tech scene, etc. That stuff is all really cool and fun, and I enjoy it when I visit SF, but it doesn’t really affect my quality of life.
Do you still feel strongly that we should “ignore the news”?
Yes! The news has gotten so much worse (both the events reported on and the level of information saturation) since I first wrote about that in 2015. And for people interested in civic engagement and politics, it’s more important than ever to ignore the news—we need to know what’s going on, but reading the news is not the same as taking action. Following the constant stream of breaking news can take up a ton of time and be super distressing. We’re better off using that time and energy for the things that make a difference.
Two articles on this:
Why It’s More Important Than Ever to Ignore the News
As the Design Sprint process has been adopted and adapted, do you think it has remained true to its original intent? What has been the most interesting innovation of the original structure? The most misunderstood part of its process?
Mostly yes. Our intent was to create a process that would help us help teams focus on the work that matters to their business, instead of running on a treadmill of meetings, emails, and endless debates. And that’s very much how it’s being used and talked about today. More and more, people understand that the default ways of working are broken, and they’re looking for new approaches that will help them make better use of their time.
I think prototyping and testing on a short timeline are the most important parts of the Design Sprint. But I don’t think they are very innovative—we’re just giving people a push and an excuse (and maybe permission) to do it :-) However, I think the ways we’ve combined individual work, group critique, and voting exercises have proven to be really new and fresh approaches to making decisions. We and others have continued to use and adapt this part of the process. It’s surprisingly resilient and flexible.
There are a lot of misunderstandings about the Design Sprint. That’s the double-edged sword of having a global community embrace and promote the process: you get this amazing ownership and enthusiasm, but you also get different people saying very different things.
Two misunderstandings that are the most problematic:
People think or assume that the Design Sprint is an innovation process. That wasn’t our intent. Our motivations were much more about speed, collaboration, reducing risk, and creating alignment within teams. That said, I think Design Sprints can create the conditions for innovation by bringing diverse voices together and giving them the chance to explore and try things in a safe environment. But it’s not the primary purpose.
This is less common, but sometimes designers (especially from a more traditional background) look at the process and say, “this is absurd, you can’t design a product in five days, that’s nuts!” And of course, they’re right—that would be nuts. But the Design Sprint isn’t about finishing the design process. It’s about starting it. It’s about using the methods and tools from the world of design to answering some big questions and get teams pointed in the right direction before they commit weeks or months of their lives to working on it.
As a working parent of young kids, one of whom needs a lot of focused guidance (one child is on the autism spectrum) I often feel pulled in different, but important, directions. What time management advice do you give people who have already cut out the extras (socials, tv, etc) and are still struggling to achieve multiple goals of a fulfilling career and best supporting dependent loved ones?
Let me answer that at three different zoom levels.
First, the micro: Playing “defense” by avoiding distraction is essential, but it’s not sufficient. You have to play “offense”, too. That means understanding what’s most important to you, actively scheduling your days around your priorities and your energy, and using focus time to give those priorities the attention they deserve.
At medium zoom: In my workshops and online courses, I teach an exercise called Stack Rank Your Life, which we wrote about in Make Time. It involves ranking all of the “projects” in your life by ideal priority and actual time spent. This is valuable to people for two reasons: One, you get to see just how much stuff you’re trying to juggle! And two, you can look for the big contrasts between ideal and actual. The results are often surprising, and they lead people to make adjustments to what they are saying yes and no to.
Finally, the macro: There are limits to how much you can optimize anything. You can only do so much. At some point, you might have to say no to things that are currently on your plate. That may sound like a bummer, but fortunately, it’s all within the context of our own expectations for ourselves. I struggle with this a lot—a desire to do more and take on interesting projects. But it’s all coming from within. I can choose to change my expectations for myself, and it’s something I’m actively working on.
Focusing on and achieving a long-term goal like being able to take the time to travel on Pineapple is an inspiration, and speaks to the power of designing your time. Do you have another audacious goal on the horizon that you are working towards?
In general, I’m not a fan of setting “destination” goals. In other words, my goals are all directional ... they describe the direction I’m moving, but not the specifics of when or where I will arrive. Yes, this is a metaphor, and yes, it’s also literal in the context of the long-term travel we did on Pineapple :-)
I mention that because, yes, I do have audacious goals for reaching more people with my work and building a business around that work. But they’re not tied to specific milestones like launching X or hitting $Y revenue or Z people on my mailing list. (Although I have a couple of fun projects planned for later this year!) I continue to be excited about my mission of helping people make time for what matters, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to continue working in pursuit of that mission.
To learn more about John Zeratsky, visit johnzeratsky.com.