Uptime

When was the last time you felt fully in control of your workday—not rushing between meetings or checking boxes, but calmly accomplishing what mattered most? In Uptime, Laura Mae Martin—Google’s Executive Productivity Advisor—invites you to rethink what it means to be productive. She argues that true effectiveness isn’t about grinding harder or filling every minute with activity, but about aligning intention with action. Her concept of Uptime redefines productivity as a state of energized flow where the right things happen at the right time, in balance with meaningful rest.

Throughout the book, Martin blends lessons from coaching Google executives with practical tools and mindset shifts. She dismantles the old myth that busyness equals success and replaces it with actionable systems grounded in clarity, focus, and personal sustainability. Whether you’re a manager, student, parent, or entrepreneur, Martin’s message is the same: productivity must serve your life, not consume it.

Throwing Out “Old Productivity”

Martin begins with a provocative example: one of her most productive days was spent binge-watching a TV show on the couch. The irony is intentional—her goal was relaxation, and she achieved it fully. By aligning intention (to rest) and action (to unwind), she reached genuine productivity. This redefinition frees you from guilt around downtime and introduces a holistic perspective: Uptime includes both focused achievement and restorative relaxation. Productivity isn’t about quantity—it’s the quality of energy and focus you bring to what matters.

The Formula: Vision + Execution = Productivity

The core principle of Uptime is Martin’s formula: Productivity = Vision + Execution. Vision opens loops—ideas, creative problems, new goals—while execution closes them through focused action. You’re not truly productive unless you’re cycling between both. Many people spend their days closing loops—answering emails, finishing tasks—without ever opening new ones through rest, creativity, or reflection. Others generate endless ideas but fail to ground them in execution. Uptime thrives at the intersection: the clarity of vision and the discipline of completion. Martin organizes this rhythm through her 5 C’s of Productivity: Calm, Create, Capture, Consolidate, Close.

Balance Over Busy

In a world obsessed with constant activity, Martin urges you to replace the brain-drain of busyness with healthy balance. Drawing on years coaching leaders at Google, she noticed that executives who seemed calm and unhurried often accomplished more than those working endless hours. Balance is the new prestige, she argues—it’s the new busy. Like the rubber-band metaphor she uses throughout the book, you must pull back before launching forward. Strategic rest fuels productivity by restoring creativity and mental clarity. (This echoes Cal Newport’s Deep Work and Daniel Pink’s When, which both highlight cyclical rhythms between peak effort and recovery.)

Time as Energy Currency

Unlike traditional time management, Uptime treats time as a bank account of energy. You don’t freely give away hours; you allocate “energy points” where they produce the best return on investment. Instead of saying yes to every meeting that requests your presence, you must ask: what am I taking time from? What will yield the highest impact for my energy today? This mindset sharpens decision-making, defends boundaries, and helps you prioritize strategically instead of reactively.

Designing for Flow

Martin rejects the myth that focus happens spontaneously. Flow and focus must be designed. Time blocks only matter when matched with energy and attention. That’s why she champions identifying your personal rhythms—your Power Hours and Off-peak Hours—and building plans around them. Instead of scheduling strategically demanding tasks at your low-energy times, tailor your calendar to align with your peaks. This alignment transforms scattered days into seamless flow.

Planning for “Future You”

Psychological research shows we often act against our own future interests—agreeing to commitments Current You can’t realistically handle. Uptime’s forward-thinking framework teaches you to plan for Future You. Whether scheduling a meeting or setting priorities, always ask, “What will Future Me wish I had done?” This approach ties together decision-making, goal setting, and boundary enforcement under the same umbrella of intentional awareness. You learn to protect your best self by forecasting energy and attention.

Why Uptime Matters

Modern productivity is at an inflection point. Remote and hybrid work blurred boundaries; overstimulation diluted focus. Martin wrote Uptime to restore simplicity and joy to getting things done. It’s equal parts operations manual and mindfulness guide for the digital age—bridging mental clarity with high performance. Her framework helps you feel “in control and calm while excelling,” turning the fragmented chaos of modern work into ordered flow. Uptime is not about doing more, Martin reminds us—it’s about doing the right things, at the right time, for the right reasons.

Laura Mae Martin insists you can transform overwhelm into clarity by defining your Top Three Priorities. She begins every coaching relationship with one deceptively simple question: “What are your top three priorities right now?” The goal isn’t to list generic aspirations—it’s to reveal what truly matters to your success and fulfillment at this moment. As research from Ohio University confirms, our brains remember things better when grouped in threes. Limiting focus forces clarity.

From Big Rocks to Sand

Martin uses the metaphor of a jar filled with rocks, pebbles, and sand. The rocks symbolize your top priorities—if you fill your time with smaller pebbles first (low-priority tasks), there’s no room left for the rocks. But if you start with the rocks, everything else fits around them naturally. This isn’t just metaphorical—it’s a method to structure your calendar and mental energy. She challenges clients to highlight their calendars and ask, “Are my biggest rocks taking up most of my time?” The results often reveal a painful truth: less than 30% of time aligns with what matters most.

Linking Priorities to Tasks

Defining priorities isn’t enough—you must attach actionable tasks. Martin introduces “high-impact actions”: concrete, measurable steps that embody each priority. For example, one executive defined his priorities as reorganizing his team, spending quality time with his children, and defining next year’s vision. Each priority was supported by specific tasks (like scheduling interviews or attending school events). These links convert vague intentions into daily discipline.

Urgent vs. Important: The Quadrant Method

When urgency strikes, priorities tend to evaporate. That’s why Martin adapts the classic Eisenhower Method (introduced by President Dwight D. Eisenhower): separate tasks into four quadrants—urgent and important, urgent but not important, important but not urgent, and neither. Your goal: stay in the “important but not urgent” zone where proactive work lives. If you’re constantly firefighting, it’s a sign your systems need fixing, not that you’re indispensable. As Martin quips, “Urgent once, fix it. Urgent seventeen times—something’s broken.”

Planning for Crises Before They Arrive

Martin recommends leaders reserve an hour per day for urgent issues, modeled after Google executives like Thomas Kurian, who publicize “urgent hours” so teams know exactly when to approach. By scheduling time for the unpredictable, you maintain control even in chaos. And when emergencies become chronic, you use that hour to analyze systemic causes instead of reacting endlessly.

Ultimately, knowing your top three priorities transforms not only your personal focus but also your relationships. When colleagues can articulate what they’re working on and why, teamwork becomes aligned and friction-free. As Martin’s method shows, clarity isn’t restrictive—it’s liberating. By defining what truly matters, you earn the freedom to say no to everything else.

Saying no feels uncomfortable—but Laura Mae Martin reframes it as an act of respect for your time and energy. Once your priorities are set, saying no protects them. Martin teaches leaders that productivity often declines not because they work too little, but because they say yes too often. She champions five deliberate methods for turning down requests without burning bridges.

Five Friendly Ways to Decline

• Ask questions first: Before committing, clarify expectations, time requirements, and relevance to your priorities.
• Buy time: Wait 24 hours before deciding, allowing emotional impulses to settle. Martin calls this escaping “video game mode”—the reflex to respond instantly.
• Imagine yes and no: Visualize both futures. Will Future You regret saying yes or wish you hadn’t said no?
• No, but... Offer an alternative—delegate, suggest another format, or refer someone else.
• No, because... Add context respectfully. Explaining that your plate is full isn’t an excuse—it’s transparency.

Value Your Time Like Money

Martin’s mentor at Google, Anas Osman, taught her to treat time like currency. You should be able to name your hourly value—how much would you pay to save one extra hour? This mindset converts abstract guilt into measurable decision-making. For instance, a mother washing baby bottles every night realized 120 annual hours vanished on a $50 task; a new set of bottles was the cost-effective solution.

Temporary No: Test and Iterate

One of Martin’s practical coaching tools is the “launch and iterate” model. Don’t permanently drop a commitment—test saying no for a month, review results, and adjust. It’s easier to experiment with boundaries than to declare absolutes. For example, when Martin limited her coaching sessions to VPs only, she discovered increased focus and better results—and happily stuck with the change.

Through these tactics, Martin proves that protecting your time doesn’t make you selfish; it makes you sustainable. Every yes creates an invisible no elsewhere—often to your health, family, or creativity. Strategic refusal is the new professional skill set, and those who master it create space for excellence.

If your head ever feels crammed with to-do’s, Laura Mae Martin has a cure: the List Funnel. Her system translates the mental storm of tasks into a structured flow from idea to completion. Lists aren’t static—they’re living systems that consolidate what your brain holds. This process organizes vision and execution seamlessly.

The Four Core Lists

• Main List: The master brain dump. One brain, one list—for everything personal and professional.
• Weekly List: What you’ll tackle this week, drawn from the Main List.
• Daily List: Hour-by-hour commitments and micro priorities.
• Capture List: A quick-access holding ground—ideas you record immediately so nothing drifts away.

Each feeds the next, moving tasks from vision to action. It’s a funnel: broad brainstorming narrows into tactical focus. This system solves one of productivity’s greatest frustrations—the gap between knowing what to do and knowing when to do it.

Theming Your Days

Martin introduces daily themes—consistent categories for what each day emphasizes. It could be “Admin Thursday,” “Client Follow-up Friday,” or “Grocery Sunday.” Themes reduce decision fatigue, organize attention across weeks, and ensure every priority gets airtime. Just as meal theming (“Meatless Monday”) simplifies dinners, work theming simplifies mental load.

The Workflow Habit

The List Funnel succeeds not because it’s complex but because it’s consistent. Martin urges you to review lists at predictable intervals—daily, weekly, monthly—creating a trusted rhythm. With repetition, you stop worrying about forgetting tasks; your system remembers for you. As productivity expert Brian Tracy says, each minute spent planning saves ten minutes executing—Martin’s lists embody that truth.

With one funnel flowing smoothly, stress dissolves. You no longer juggle fragments in your brain—the system handles it. Whether handwritten or digital, this funnel creates calm clarity, transforming chaos into confident control.

Martin moves beyond to-do lists to time design. Her chapters on energy flow and Zero-Based Calendaring reveal that time management isn’t about squeezing tasks—it’s about structuring your week around your natural rhythms. You don’t manage time; you manage energy.

Know Your Flow: Power Hours and Off-Peak Hours

Your brain operates on a built-in chronotype. Some people thrive at dawn; others peak at dusk. Martin calls the two-to-three hours when you feel “unstoppable” your Power Hours. These are sacred—they’re for strategic, high-impact work. Conversely, your Off-peak Hours are for admin tasks, brainstorming, or creative wandering. She coached a West Coast executive to shift his focused work from afternoon drags to morning highs and watched his productivity rise by 30%. Small scheduling changes yield exponential results.

Zero-Based Calendaring

Inspired by zero-based budgeting, this method resets how you build your schedule: start each week with a blank slate. Add nonnegotiables first (school drop-offs, mandatory meetings), then intentionally block Power Hours, Off-peak tasks, and downtime. By designing your “ideal week,” you escape autopilot scheduling. Rather than inheriting last week’s chaos, you architect your time consciously. Martin’s clients often find that even two days aligned with their ideal template transforms their sense of control.

Points of Control

Points of control—small weekly planning blocks—stabilize your system. They might include ten minutes to create your Weekly List or post-meeting debrief time to process follow-ups. These intentional anchors prevent overwhelm by forcing reflection and resets. Martin’s motto: “Be in charge of your day, not at the mercy of it.”

In a culture of back-to-back meetings, Zero-Based Calendaring reclaims agency. Your week becomes a designed ecosystem—fluid, but not reactive. In Martin’s vision, scheduling isn’t administrative; it’s strategic art.

For most people, inboxes and pings are time black holes. So Martin dedicates entire chapters to taming distraction and email—the twin enemies of focus. Her solution is practical and transformative: treat your attention like childproofing your home. Instead of chasing distractions, prevent them. She calls this proactive design the secret to uninterrupted flow.

Childproof Your Workspace

To prepare for deep work, you must act like your own assistant. Before you begin, remove temptations—close tabs, silence notifications, place your phone twenty seconds away (drawing from Shawn Achor’s “twenty-second rule” for habit breaking). If distraction requires effort, it loses power. Martin jokes that boredom is your best productivity friend—it nudges you into focus and flow.

Monotasking Beats Multitasking

Through a clever exercise, she proves multitasking doubles completion time. When people alternate between writing letters and numbers—M, 1, U, 2—they need twice the time compared to writing straight through. Doing multiple things at once doesn’t divide effort—it multiplies inefficiency. Martin’s message echoes Cal Newport’s advocacy for concentration: for tasks that matter, do one thing only.

The Laundry Method for Email

Email, she says, is like laundry—you can’t fold one shirt, walk upstairs, and repeat endlessly. Instead, sort emails first into four categories: Respond (requires action), Read (informational), Revisit (follow-up), and Relax (complete). Address each pile in batches. Batch tasking reduces decision fatigue and uses fewer “energy points.” You stop feeling buried under the inbox avalanche because each email has a home.

Her practical systems, from inbox filtering to focus bursts, transcend hacks—they’re psychological engineering. Instead of waging war against distraction, Martin teaches you to redesign the battlefield. Quiet creates creativity; structure breeds peace.

Part V of Uptime merges productivity with wellness. Martin argues that planning your life rhythmically—through routines and mindful habits—fuels your energy as much as any business technique. Productivity isn’t a mechanical pursuit; it’s emotional and human.

When:Then Routines

The secret to habits, she explains, is pairing them with triggers. Every “then” should follow a consistent “when.” For example, “When I put the kids to bed, then I practice piano.” Martin uses psychology from habit research (Philippa Lally, Duke University): routines stick faster when attached to existing behaviors. She applied this to personal growth and creative hobbies, turning vague goals into effortless rhythms.

No-Tech Tuesday & Wake-Up Wednesday

Technology addiction destroys mental space, so Martin introduces No-Tech Tuesday—a weekly evening of device-free living from dinner to bedtime. Thousands of Googlers have joined the challenge, discovering better sleep, creativity, and family connection. Its companion, Wake-Up Wednesday, builds on that clarity by dedicating the first hour of the morning to device-free reflection, creativity, or meditation—the “Laura 30.” These rituals reprogram your brain for calm engagement.

Mindful Mornings and Meditation

Martin’s most transformative advice may be her simplest: start your day intentionally. Her morning trifecta—music, soft lighting, and a “gift for Future You”—primes your mindset. Then, meditate daily. Ten minutes of mindfulness, she says, magnifies every subsequent hour. Meditation strengthens focus like exercise strengthens muscles. It’s mental hygiene for sustained Uptime.

These practices reveal Martin’s deeper mission: productivity as a path to presence. In her world, efficiency serves peace; schedules serve joy. The result isn’t just getting more done—it’s living better while doing it all.

By the final chapter, Laura Mae Martin ties everything together: Uptime is the harmony between clarity, rhythm, and wellbeing. It’s the antidote to burnout and the blueprint for sustainable excellence. You can measure Uptime not by tasks completed, but by how you feel—calm, creative, and in control. If you’re answering yes to clarity and energy, you’re in Uptime.

Small Changes, Big Impact

Martin reminds readers that the magic lies in small implementations. Even one boundary, one daily theme, or one mindful morning can radically shift outcomes. Like steering a car inside a circle, adjusting direction by one degree leads you to a completely different destination. Uptime rewards intentional steering more than speed.

From Theory to Practice

She invites readers to pick three lessons that stand out most—a self-curated starting point. Whether that’s mastering meetings, exploring downtime creativity, or building the List Funnel, start with what resonates. Productivity is personal; it must fit your rhythms and vocation. (In this sense, Martin’s advice blends the logic of David Allen’s Getting Things Done with the mindfulness of James Clear’s Atomic Habits.)

Productivity as Feeling

Unlike factory-era metrics, Martin’s measure of success is emotional rather than statistical: rejuvenation, engagement, creativity, balance, energy. When those conditions align, output naturally follows. Her concept reframes the future of work—not as optimizing performance but optimizing humanity.

Ultimately, Uptime isn’t a set of hacks; it’s a lifestyle philosophy. To live in Uptime is to design your days around focus and replenishment, structure and flow. The promise is simple yet powerful: every minute you spend applying these methods, you’ll earn back at least that much time—and far more peace.