Smarter, Faster, Better: How to Apply the Science of Productivity to Your Habits
Productivity isn’t just about getting things done. Basically, it means being resourceful with your time. In a recent interview with writer Charles Duhigg, he told us: “You can spend all day being busy and not doing anything important. Productivity is about getting things done. ” In his new book Smarter Faster Better, Duhigg explores the fuller meaning of productivity and how to achieve it.
Duhigg is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for the New York Times and author of the best-selling book The Power of Habit . The book has spent over 60 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, and we have discussed it here several times . We even interviewed Duhigg for our How We Work series and grabbed an excerpt from his new book here .
In Smarter, Faster, Better: Secrets of Productivity in Life and Business, Duhigg uses research and science to explain how all of our productivity habits work, but he weaves those moments with real-world examples, many of which are notable historical events. to illustrate how these behavioral concepts work in practice. The result is a book that guides us through the relationship between psychology and productivity, suggesting ways to use this information for the reader’s own benefit.
Who is this book for?
Most of us are stuck in the Employment Cult . We are all stressed. We all have a lot to do. We’re all busy. Being busy keeps us from doing important things, and as Duhigg notes:
Prioritizing Your Time seems to be the overarching theme of the book, and her Introduction expands on this idea, explaining that our tense, stressful culture can sometimes get in the way of taking a step back and paying attention to the right things.
If any of this sounds vaguely familiar, you will learn a thing or two from the book. You will learn how to use the psychology behind motivation, focus, goal setting, and decision making to work in your favor . In short, the book is intended for anyone who wants to better manage their time or optimize their work.
What do you get
Each chapter of the book focuses on different productive habits and fully explains how this habit works. Typically, a chapter begins with a story about something familiar, such as the cast of Saturday Night Live or the Yom Kippur War , where the story is used to illustrate how these productive habits work in practice. Based on this, Duhigg not only cites interesting studies that show exactly how our brains work, he delves deeply into these studies, describing the stories and objects behind them. For example, in the chapter “Focus,” Duhigg tells the story of a neonatal nurse named Darlene, who was able to predict that an infant in her ward was going through early sepsis and saved the infant’s life. Duhigg writes:
She couldn’t point to anything in particular, but this baby just didn’t look the way Darlene expected. Darlene found an attending physician and said that she needed to start treating the child with intravenous antibiotics. All they had to do was Darlene’s intuition.
The story comes from researcher Beth Crandall, co-author of the 1991 study Guidelines for the Early Evaluation of Sepsis in the Intensive Care Unit. Throughout the chapter, Duhigg interviews Crandall about her research, characterizing her work with the real stories behind her.
In addition to storytelling and research, the book also contains helpful tips so that the reader can apply each concept. Here’s a quick rundown of what you’ll find in each chapter:
The chapter “Motivation” explains how to take control of the situation.
Some of us have an internal locus of control, not an external one. Simply put, the inner locus of control is the belief that your actions affect your destiny. People with a strong internal locus of control tend to be less stressed, more motivated, and have more academic success. To build your own inner locus of control, focus on choice. Duhigg told us:
What we know is that you can definitely teach it, and you can learn it … Never tell anyone that they are natural born leaders because that means they have no choice in being a leader. … Instead, you say, “I saw how hard you worked and I deserve this leadership.” Thus, you maintain an internal locus of control: you indicate, you explain to people how their choices, how their actions lead to such positive results.
Then you put them in situations where they really need to make controlled choices, and in doing so, they learn.
Decisions play a critical role in self-motivation, and Duhigg suggests a two-step process for motivating yourself : giving yourself a choice, and then linking that choice to a higher goal.
The Teams chapter explains how people succeed in working together.
No matter how smart each person is, they probably won’t work well in a team if they don’t have psychological safety . Basically, this means that in order to thrive, every team member must feel accepted, respected, and free to share their crazy ideas. Duhigg writes:
“In general, the path to psychological safety begins with the team leader. So, if you’re leading a team … think about what message your choice will send. Are you promoting equality in conversation, or are you rewarding the loudest people? “
To cultivate this safety, team leaders must give members control. They should ask their opinion and weigh their judgments.
The chapter “Focus” will tell you how to stay calm in stressful situations.
Automation is handy, but when we switch too many important things to autopilot, we risk cognitive tunneling . In other words, when we are faced with stress, we focus on existing systems and act according to them, rather than reality or common sense. You’ve probably seen this in action where someone doesn’t know how to deal with a surprise because they don’t have a policy or procedure to do it, and they can’t think on their own two feet. Duhigg told us:
We all know this when we are in the cognitive tunnel because we feel that we are simply reacting to things. For example, when you are driving on a freeway, you are not accelerating, but you see a police car and crash on the brakes. This is a cognitive tunnel. That is, you are reacting rather than thinking or brooding.
The solution is to develop mental models : to imagine the outcome of possible events. For example, while driving, imagine driving past a police car or finding someone in your blind spot, or approaching a car with an unstable driver. When you find yourself in these hypothetical situations, you give yourself the opportunity to make choices. Simply put, you are yanking yourself out of autopilot.
The chapter “Goal Setting” explains how to link long-term goals to daily goals .
In this chapter, Duhigg talks about cognitive closure , or our desire to solve a problem instead of letting our mind wander and leave the problem open. Cognitive completion seems to be productive, so we often make hasty decisions for the satisfaction of doing something. We can rush to achieve a goal and lose sight of the big picture. Duhigg told us:
The key is to combine “long-term goals” – our larger, possibly longer-term goals – with traditional SMART goals . SMART goals are goals that are S pecific, M easurable, A chievable, R Elevant, T-IME boxed. When we break down goals in this way, they are easier to internalize, but you risk losing sight of the bigger picture. Productive people keep their overestimated goals in mind when they set goals for the month, week, or day. With your challenging goal in mind, you can direct the need for cognitive closure to your top priority.
Duhigg will help you assimilate all the data in the book by using the Reader’s Guide to Using These Ideas in his Appendix. If you want to speed up your reading of the book, you can take a look at this section to see important findings. However, the book is full of useful information, so you can barely cover the surface.
One trick you won’t succeed
Duhigg’s two-step motivation process is hard to beat. Personally, though, what was most helpful was his advice to combine challenging goals with SMART goals.
It’s pretty simple: write your long-term goal or overall ambition at the top of your daily to-do list. When you set a SMART goal, write it at the top of the list. The idea is to keep this goal in front of you so that you can focus on what matters most to you.
I do this every morning when I make my daily to-do list. It keeps my long term goal in mind. It motivates me, yes, but it also helps me prioritize and weed out tasks that interfere with my long-term goal.
Our opinion
Smarter, faster, better not only explains how to be more productive, but also explains what productivity is in the first place and why it matters. Obviously, we are not new to this topic. Performance has been criticized for turning you into a robot. You are so preoccupied with optimization and efficiency that you forget to just live and enjoy life. However, it misses the mark. As Smarter Faster Better explains, being productive is simply making the best use of your time so you have more time to enjoy life.
Duhigg knows his stuff – the book is filled with a terrifying body of knowledge and research. However, this study only complements and supports its broader and more important lessons. Duhigg takes our most subtle habits and breaks them down in an obvious and easy-to-digest way.
For example, I’ve had problems with cognitive closure all my life, but until now I didn’t even know it had a name. And I certainly didn’t understand how it worked. Now that I understand this, I can fight it – or better yet, make it work in my favor.
You can buy it in hardcover or on Amazon Kindle for about $ 15.