In Free To Focus, Michael Hyatt bridges from goal setting, the subject of Your Best Year Ever (Hyatt, 2018), to goal achievement by helping one focus on what is important, avoid what is not, and truly be productive. He addresses head-on the increasingly difficult problem of staying on task, caused by what he and others call the Distraction Economy. I only have to look at myself and our teenagers using social media and news sites to observe attention deficits strongly in action. (For a comprehensive discussion and solution that focuses primarily on this specific problem, see Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport, 2019).
In this well-rounded work, Michael Hyatt addresses not only distraction but also task reduction, prioritization strategies, and practical methods that can be put into use immediately. He has honed these ideas using practical experience and feedback gathered from his online course, Free to Focus, to help a person retain focus and be more effective on working on what is truly important. The book surprisingly starts by having the reader stop everything, re-evaluate their skills and tasks, and then cut out all the things that are consuming time that should be better used elsewhere. This is much easier said than done, so Michael Hyatt lays out a methodical approach on how to achieve this.
One of Michael’s greatest skills is taking good research and distilling it into step by step practices and methods, providing enough information for a person to apply it to their own situations. One must not simply read what Michael has written, as an armchair philosopher might do. The benefits of this book are realized by doing the work of the exercises and filling out the worksheets which he provides on the book’s website. Some of this self-evaluation work is not easy, in that it requires hard decisions and honest evaluation of one’s true strengths, distractions, and tasks a person may feel forced to do. This is where creativity and judgment are required to realize benefit. Thankfully the book gives examples and anecdotes of situations most people will relate to, which helps the readers to do this foundational work.
Michael’s “Freedom Compass” approach is an excellent method to define what to focus on and what to eliminate or delegate. After completing that matrix, I have a personal description of what I most value and am good at, along with lists what I should not be doing. And I also appreciate the inclusion of a development zone that helps one document areas for personal improvement. I have seen much more comprehensive lists of candidate activities for delegation, but this book provides a good start for one to develop their own list.
I recently had a request from someone to help them do a task that would take most of a morning, right when I am typically most productive. I have a hard time saying no, as many others also do, so I turned to the book for guidance. Michael recommends becoming skilled at saying no in a way that affirms the worth of the other person. Using the method in the book, I evaluated the request in terms of my “Freedom Compass” desire zone, and then I responded that I appreciated that they came to me with the request, said that I couldn’t do it because I would have to give up something quite important (related to primary income), but then I offered suggestions for how they might proceed. This is a perfect example of how Michael distilled content from William Ury’s book, The Power of a Positive No, into a form that could be quickly adapted to address a particular situation. The requestor subsequently had a good dialogue with me after my response, which served to strengthen our relationship because we better understood the other’s needs. Afterwards I felt like I exercised an important muscle to safeguard my time, energy, and values. I look forward to continuing to develop and refine the skill of tactfully saying no.
Another related forward thinking practice is how to develop a template email response to quickly respond to similar situations, which will save time in the future. Michael gives personal examples and specific implementations he uses for this type of automation, all of which are relevant to common situations encountered by many people.
I have been using Michael Hyatt’s Full Focus Planner for about a year now, and find that the Free To Focus book and the planner dovetail quite nicely. The planner contains valuable forms and is periodically improved with feedback from users. How this has helped me is that in the book Michael recommends four habitual practices that he calls daily rituals be defined and performed. This is quite useful, as it has caused me to carefully develop morning and evening habits to reliably take care of the basics needed for my household and personal welfare, and that frees me to reserve activities requiring my sharpest brainpower and energies for creative tasks during the day. This is a very practical approach to allocate and preserve time and energy for the most important activities scheduled during the week, and then to actually be sharply focused on accomplishing those activities when the time comes to do so.
I am very appreciative of the templates provided on the book’s website, which are substantially the same as contained in his course. But I have two criticisms of the supplemental materials. The first is that they are in pdf format, which is difficult to work with for capturing one’s ideas in digital form. Second, there are distracting trademark symbols on various phrases in the templates, which thankfully through good editing do not appear in the book. For example, a “not-to-do list” has been described in literature and articles by others for years, so I cannot fathom it being a trademark as it is presented in the form. But these are minor criticisms that can easily be overcome through copy and paste from the pdf forms into an editor to adapt the forms for one’s own use as editable documents. I hope in the future that improved resources are made available, but that should not stop anyone from applying the book now and using what is available on the website.
This is a book that was refined via feedback and experience of many of Michael’s students of his course, so it has been in development for some time, and the ideas presented have now been tested, are current, mature, and proven to work. It is also much less expensive than the course was, so the book makes available valuable and practical content to everyone. I appreciate that the book provides useful references as end notes and also an excellent index for quick reference on my phone and computers as a Kindle book. The practical ideas within Free To Focus continue to help me to improve my career path, spend guilt-free time with my family, and help me have the freedom to focus on what is truly important. For that, I am grateful and highly recommend the book.
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Customer reviews
Free to Focus book by Michael Hyatt is a complete productivity game changer.Michael Hyatt’s Free to Focus Productivity system is one of the most complete and doable systems I have come across. Everyone gets 168 hours a week and yet for some, it never feels like enough. Work tends to take up the largest share of that time. Most people think productivity is about finding or saving time so that you can cram more into that time. But it’s not! It’s about making our time work for us so that we can free up some time and do what we want to do.In Michael’s book Free to Focus he reveals to readers nine proven ways to win at work. We are finally free to succeed in the rest of life —our health, relationships, hobbies, and more. He helps readers redefine for themselves their:GoalsEvaluate what’s workingCut out the non-essentialFocus on the most important tasksManage time and energyAnd build momentum for a lifetime of success.The Free to Focus system is based on 3 basic steps (stop, cut, act), each step, then, consists of 3 mutually supportive actions Stop = formulate, evaluate, rejuvenate = 7 productive life-sustaining practices, Cut = calendar (triage), automate, delegate, Act = consolidates, designate, activate. When adopting these strategies a self-perpetuating system emerges that, even under unfavorable circumstances (passing through different stages of life, etc.), helps you to fulfill your life mission.While the process Michael gives for Free to Focus Productivity, is outstanding, he does not just stop there. He also gives us resources in the book, as well as on his website, that will walk you through how to accomplish each one of these steps.If you are looking to take control of your life and improve your productivity, I highly recommend this book to you.The dollar value of lost productivity does matter, but it’s not what really hurts. The true cost comes from all the dreams left unexplored, the talents left untried, the goals left not pursued. Michael spends some time-sharing another tool to help us figure where each task that we do will fall in our energy areas of like to dislike and draining. The more we stay in our high energy and like area the more productivity we will get to experience. More of our personal dreams being accomplished will be the true result.Now make one of your best choices today and go get the book, Free to Focus.**I was fortunate to have a preview copy and this book is going to be one that I read, again and again, to glean every ounce of insight into making my life more productive and enjoyable. **
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