John Zeratsky
9 statements across 2 episodes · 0 bullish · 4 bearish · 2 people on the record · first statement Feb 11, 2024 by John Zeratsky · said 1 times in 1 episodes since 2022 · across every show →
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Feb 11, 2024 negative
Zeratsky: Infinite apps and cultural pressure create a distraction flywheel
“And so when you put these two things together, the busy bandwagon and the infinity pool, you kind of have this like, it's like a flywheel, but bad, you know, it's like this, you feel like you really need to be busy. You really need to be on top of everything. …”
Feb 11, 2024
Zeratsky disabled Instagram and Facebook and keeps social apps off his phone
“I, I'm not on Instagram and I'm not on Facebook. Like I was on both of those things and I left both of them. Like I disabled my accounts. I am on Twitter and LinkedIn, but I don't have either of those apps installed on my phone. I stay logged out of those site…”
Feb 11, 2024
Zeratsky: Willpower cannot beat digital distractions without environmental friction
“The basic principle with laser is that your willpower is never going to win. Like we'll, and there's like, there's great research on this, like, but for now, just trust me, like, well, you're not going to white knuckle your way through, like not looking at Twi…”
Feb 11, 2024
Zeratsky: Daily highlights should come from urgency, satisfaction, or joy
“So you have these kind of, these three different sort of strategies that we talk about, urgency, satisfaction, and joy as being three different places you can look for the right highlight for you each day. But ultimately I think it comes down to like just trus…”
Feb 11, 2024 negative
Zeratsky: Isolated productivity hacks fail without a repeatable system
“If you're just stuck and you're looking, you're sort of grasping for hacks, you know, you're sort of like, oh, I read it, read this really, you know, this blog post about this thing. I'll try it. That might have some short-term Effect, but ultimately you're pr…”
Feb 11, 2024 negative
Zeratsky: Productivity requires changing defaults, not maximizing efficiency on reactive tasks
“Most productivity advice focuses on getting better and faster about doing the things that are already in front of you. So the messages that are in your inbox, the meetings that are on your calendar, a lot of focus on efficiency, like crank through that stuff. …”
Jul 13, 2025 negative
Zeratsky: Design Sprints fail pre-seed startups that lack foundational positioning
“When we started investing in, you know, truly precede, sometimes inception stage, you know, pre-product, pre-revenue, pre-everything companies, there was this piece missing at the beginning of that process. So we'd, we'd run design sprints and they would be he…”
Jul 13, 2025
Jul 13, 2025 neutral
Knapp: Google teams used 'fast is better than slow' to guide decisions
“When John and I worked at Google back in the 2000, there was this list called 10 things we've found to be true. And one of the things on that list was fast is better than slow. And what was interesting is this is a mantra that you would actually hear people us…”