Free to Focus: Book Overview & Takeaways (Michael Hyatt)

What’s Free to Focus by Michael Hyatt about? Do you struggle to be more productive, despite society telling you to achieve as much as possible?

In Free to Focus, Michael Hyatt explains his definition of productivity, which emphasizes what you get done rather than how much you get done. He introduces the Productivity Matrix, a crucial tool for determining how you could spend your time more effectively.

Read below for a brief Free to Focus book overview.

Overview of Free to Focus

Modern society constantly pushes us to achieve more while offering more distractions to siphon away our time and energy. The book Free to Focus (2019) offers a solution to this paradox: Achieve more by doing less. Michael Hyatt argues that true productivity isn’t about how much you do, but rather how important and fulfilling those tasks are to you. His approach challenges the conventional wisdom of constant “hustle,” instead suggesting that you streamline your schedule and eliminate as many tasks as possible—leaving you free to focus on what really matters. 

Hyatt brings decades of leadership experience to his productivity teachings. He served as chairman and CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers, one of the largest publishing companies in America, before founding his own leadership development company, Full Focus (formerly Michael Hyatt & Company). Beyond Free to Focus, Hyatt has authored several best-selling books on leadership and productivity and has developed widely used planning tools like the Full Focus Planner.

A Different Idea of Productivity

People generally think of productivity as getting a lot of things done, but Hyatt disagrees; instead, he defines productivity as getting the right things done. 

The author begins by saying that like many people in the modern world, you probably feel like you’re drowning in an endless stream of emails, calls, and to-do lists. Changing how you think about productivity will enable you to accomplish more while actually working less. That, in turn, will finally allow you to get your head above water. 

In this section we’ll go over Hyatt’s idea of productivity, as well as some guidelines to help ensure that you’re being productive in a meaningful way. We’ll also discuss why being productive (as Hyatt defines it) requires you to develop a clear vision of your ideal life. 

The Purpose of Productivity

Hyatt says that the ultimate goal of any productivity system is freedom. 

For Hyatt, freedom means being able to focus deeply on important work without being constantly interrupted with phone calls, emails, less-important tasks, or other distractions. It also means having the ability to disconnect from your work and be fully present with your family and friends. Finally, freedom means having the ability to drop everything in order to handle something important—or to rest and do nothing at all. 

Hyatt adds that you’re most likely pursuing this goal already, even if you don’t realize it. For instance, you go through your emails in the hopes that you soon won’t have any more emails to deal with, and you earn money so you’ll have the freedom to do what you want while you’re not at work.

Before You Start: Decide What You’re Working Toward

Recall that, for Hyatt, productivity doesn’t just mean accomplishing a lot; it means accomplishing important things. To do this, you first need to figure out what’s important to you. 

Hyatt says you need to start with a clear idea of what you want your life to look like—your personal vision of success. This means deciding what matters most to you, whether that’s your career, your family, spirituality, hobbies, or something else that you’re passionate about. Also, consider how much of your life you’d ideally devote toward each of those pursuits. This vision will become your guidepost as you work to create a balanced and fulfilling life.

For instance, if you envision yourself as CEO of a large corporation, you’ll probably have to devote most of your time to your career. On the other hand, if your ideal life is being a stay-at-home parent, then you likely see yourself devoting most of your time to your family. These are both valid concepts of success and would serve as effective goals to build a life around.

A Fundamental Tool: the Productivity Matrix

We’ve covered the goals of Hyatt’s productivity system and why it could benefit you. However, before we go into specific strategies, there’s another foundational topic to discuss: a tool that Hyatt calls the Freedom Compass, which helps you evaluate the value of the things you do.

Instead of Freedom Compass, we’ll be using the term Productivity Matrix to highlight this tool’s purpose—productivity—and its similarities to the famous Eisenhower Priority Matrix.

Creating Your Productivity Matrix

Hyatt’s Productivity Matrix helps you evaluate tasks based on two criteria: interest and skill. Interest means that a task invigorates you—thinking about it gets you excited, and working on it makes you feel energized rather than drained. Skill represents your ability to get results: A task you’re skilled at is one that you can do correctly and efficiently. 

Your Productivity Matrix should end up looking something like this:

Note that there are four distinct zones your activities can fall into:

1.  The Grind Zone contains tasks you neither enjoy nor excel at. These are things that simply drain your energy and waste your time. 

2. The Tedium Zone is for activities that you’re skilled at but lack enthusiasm for. These are the tasks that you tend to get stuck with just because you’re good at them. 

3. The Inefficiency Zone encompasses tasks you love doing but aren’t particularly good at. This zone can be dangerous because your passion might blind you to your lack of skill, leading you to waste a lot of time that you could have spent more productively. However, note that tasks in this zone can move into your Productivity Zone if you become more skilled at them. This potential to improve means it’s not necessarily bad to work on Inefficiency Zone tasks, just be mindful of why you’re doing those tasks and how long you’re spending on them.

4. The Productivity Zone is for tasks that you’re both interested in and skilled at doing. This is where you can accomplish the most work in the least time. Also, note that personal activities (like spending time with loved ones, and taking time for rest and recreation) are just as important as work, making them good candidates for this zone.

Using Your Productivity Matrix

Hyatt says you should try to spend as much time as possible doing tasks in your Productivity Zone, while minimizing the time you spend in the other zones. This process begins with an honest self-evaluation: Think about how you currently spend your time and energy, and identify which of your activities fall into each zone of the Productivity Matrix. 

For example, does your job fall into your Productivity Zone (meaning that it holds your interest and you’re skilled at it), or into your Tedium Zone (meaning you’re good at what you do, but not really interested in it)? Do the same for any other tasks that take up a significant amount of your time, such as activities you regularly do with clubs or other social groups, hobbies you practice, and volunteer work or side jobs you have. 

The author also says that activities outside of your Productivity Zone are things you should consider removing from your life if possible. The next section goes into detail about removing such activities.

Strategy #1: Get Rid of Unproductive Activities

Now that we’ve explained Hyatt’s definition of productivity and introduced a crucial tool for identifying productive activities, you have a strong foundation to start working through his various productivity strategies. The first strategy is to eliminate as many unproductive tasks as possible from your life. 

In this section we’ll discuss why it’s important to remove unproductive activities from your schedule, and how to turn down requests that don’t help you reach meaningful goals. 

Choosing Your Commitments

Hyatt begins by reminding you that you can only do one thing at a time—so, whenever you commit to doing something, you’re also opting to not do other things. That may seem like an obvious statement, but staying mindful about these inherent tradeoffs helps you make better decisions regarding how you’ll spend your time. 

For example, if you agree to meet a friend at the bar one evening, you can’t use that time to be with your family, prepare for work the next day, or get to bed early. Hyatt isn’t saying it would be wrong to spend time with your friend instead of doing those other things; just make sure to consider the opportunities you’d pass up by making such a commitment.

Hyatt adds that the Productivity Matrix is the perfect tool for evaluating requests and opportunities. Before committing to something, consider whether it falls into your Productivity Zone, meaning the area where your skills and interests align with each other. 

If this new task is in your Productivity Zone (and you have the time for it) you’ll most likely want to accept that commitment. If not, you should strongly consider turning the other person down.

Tip: Make a “Do Not” List

To help keep yourself on track, Hyatt says that creating a list of things not to do is just as important as maintaining a to-do list. 

This involves examining your current commitments and activities and identifying which tasks can be permanently eliminated from your life. Then, write those tasks down so that you remember not to do them, or to make commitments relating to them, anymore. 

For instance, if you often stay up late playing a particular video game instead of getting a good night’s sleep, that game is a good candidate for your “do not” list.

Turning People Down

As we’ve discussed, it’s important to carefully choose your commitments. To help you do so, Hyatt offers some advice on how to effectively (but politely) turn people down. 

First of all, remember that your time and energy are finite, and decide who you’re willing to spend those limited resources on. These are most likely people such as your family, your boss, your friends, and so on. Making these distinctions helps you feel ready to protect your productivity by saying no if someone who isn’t on your list of important people tries to request your time and attention.

Second, recognize that you can (usually) reject a request without causing any serious resentment or hurt feelings. Hyatt says that you can do so simply by setting your refusal in the proper context. When turning someone down, it’s usually best to start by making it clear that you listened to their request and gave it due consideration. Next, clearly and firmly decline the request. Finally, offer an alternative solution if possible. Now the other person understands that you heard them out, and you do want to help, but their request just wasn’t feasible for you.

Strategy #2: Give Your Tasks to Other People

We’ve discussed getting rid of unproductive tasks in order to free up your time and energy for meaningful work. However, it’s most likely impossible to eliminate every activity outside of your Productivity Zone, which is why this section will discuss another strategy: letting other people handle tasks for you.

By delegating tedious or time-consuming responsibilities to others, you can dramatically improve your productivity and your satisfaction. While this approach is more difficult at first than handling tasks yourself—you need to find the right people, negotiate their compensation, and train them—the long-term benefits will far outweigh that initial investment of time and effort.

In this section we’ll review various types of delegation, then share Hyatt’s advice on choosing which tasks to delegate. 

Choosing the Right Kind of Delegation

Hyatt notes that there are various types of delegation, each of which provide different levels of autonomy and responsibility. It’s thus important to clarify exactly what you expect the other person to do and how much freedom they have in choosing how to do it. This will help prevent confusion and frustration for both parties.

The most basic type of delegation is for when you simply want a specific task done. The person you assign the task to will have minimal autonomy, but also minimal responsibility—all they have to do is follow your instructions.

Hyatt’s next type of delegation is for when you want someone to look into a particular subject or problem. For instance, you might need information about what movies are currently popular with a certain demographic or what software could help with a particularly tedious part of your workflow.

This kind of delegation requires you to provide a bit more autonomy. Step-by-step instructions won’t always work for conducting research, so your worker needs to have enough freedom to explore the issue as they see fit. 

After completing their research, they should report their findings, and offer recommendations if asked. However, at this level of delegation, all final decisions are up to you.

The final kind of delegation Hyatt discusses is empowering the person to make decisions and implement them without your approval. Even at this level of autonomy, it’s common to require regular reports and updates: what decisions the person made, how they executed those decisions, and their results. With that said, if you trust the person enough, you can give them complete autonomy by waiving that requirement. 

Strategy #3: Automate as Much as Possible

Delegation works well for difficult or complex tasks. Unfortunately, in many cases, simple tasks that you need to do regularly take up a great deal of time that you’d prefer to spend on more meaningful work. Hyatt says that automation offers a powerful solution to this problem. 

In this section we’ll review three areas where automation can significantly reduce your mental load and boost your productivity: the small tasks you do every day, your communication methods, and repetitive or tedious tasks you have to handle while working.

Automating Your Daily Tasks

Hyatt’s first strategy is what he calls self-automation, which focuses on creating consistent habits and routines in your daily life. This strategy ensures that you complete simple-but-important tasks efficiently and frees your mind to focus on more meaningful issues. 

For instance, if you wake up at the same time every morning, then shower, shave, get dressed, eat breakfast, brush your teeth, and leave for work—in that order—pretty soon that routine will become a habit, and you’ll carry it out more or less automatically. This means that, while you’re carrying out your morning routine, you can be thinking ahead and planning how you’ll tackle that day’s tasks and challenges. 

Additional Benefit: Automating Your Mindset

Hyatt adds that another reason to create routines is because habits also serve as cues for you to get into certain mindsets. 

If you always start your workday by, say, checking your emails, then opening your inbox will subconsciously signal to you that it’s time to be focused and productive. Similarly, a consistent end-of-day habit (perhaps turning off your work computer at the same time each day) will let your mind know that it’s time to stop thinking about work. This will free you up to focus on other important activities like resting or spending time with your family. 

Performing small rituals like these throughout the day will help you automatically shift into the right mindsets at the right times. This will enable you to be fully present and engaged with whatever you’re currently doing. 

Automating Your Communication

Hyatt’s second automation method is what he calls template automation. This involves creating standardized responses and outlines for common situations, allowing you to communicate quickly and efficiently. For example, you might develop email templates for frequent types of requests rather than having to write every email from scratch, or create standard presentation formats for regular meetings—then you’d only need to worry about what information you’re presenting, not how to present it. 

Investing time upfront to create high-quality templates not only saves time in the long run, but often results in clearer, more professional communications. This is because you can carefully craft and refine your templates over time, then simply fill them out as needed for each individual situation. Such templates also minimize the risk that you’ll make mistakes like leaving out important information or accidentally saying something rude. 

Automating Your Workflow

Finally, you can streamline your workflow using what Hyatt terms technical automation: leveraging apps and digital tools to handle repetitive tasks for you, thereby minimizing the time and energy you spend on them. For example, in a typical office setting you might encounter automation tools like Robotic Process Automation (RPA) software, which handles data entry and transfer between systems, as well as email automation tools that sort, filter, and send pre-written responses to common inquiries.

The author urges you to focus on figuring out what types of tools will help you simplify your work, rather than which specific tools you want to use. Identifying the core functions that you want to automate will help you to stay flexible enough to adapt as technology evolves. This is important because individual tools could be replaced with newer versions, old apps might be incompatible with newer hardware or operating systems, or a developer might simply decide to stop supporting a specific tool you rely on. 

Strategy #4: Take Care of Yourself

So far, we’ve discussed various ways to simplify your life and work. In this section, we’ll be discussing some important things to add to your routine in order to keep yourself healthy and productive.

Hyatt begins by challenging a common misconception about productivity: the idea that time is flexible while energy is fixed. In other words, people commonly think that they can work as few or as many hours as they need to, while always maintaining the same level of productivity. 

However, it’s really the other way around. Time is fixed—there are only so many hours in a day—while your energy levels rise and fall based on how well you take care of yourself. In other words, in order to stay productive, you must take time to rest and attend to your needs. 

A Self-Care Checklist for Productivity

While you can’t create more time in your day, Hyatt says you can make the most of the time you have by taking good care of yourself. Tending to your physical, mental, and emotional well-being will maximize your energy, and consequently your productivity. 

Some specific self-care habits that Hyatt urges you to practice include:

• Sleep: To maximize your energy and productivity, try to get at least seven hours of sleep every night. For more restful sleep, keep your bedroom at a cool temperature and as dark as possible, and avoid looking at screens (TV, phone, computer, and so on) before bed. 
• Eat: Your eating habits have a major impact on your energy levels throughout the day. Try to eat mostly natural, unprocessed foods for sustainable long-term energy. Also be mindful of what you drink—juices and sodas tend to be loaded with sugar, which will give you a quick burst of energy followed by a crash shortly afterward. 
• Exercise: Regular exercise not only improves your physical health, it also enhances cognitive function and creativity. Just 20-25 minutes of moderate activity per day—such as a brisk walk or a set of yoga exercises—can produce a noticeable difference in your energy and productivity. 
• Socialize: Taking time to nurture positive relationships with family, friends, and colleagues pays dividends in terms of both personal well-being and professional success. Not only will spending time with people you like make you happier, it will also give you valuable opportunities to network, ask for advice, and exchange favors. Hyatt recommends evaluating your social circle to determine which people give you the most energy and which leave you feeling drained.