Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business

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Those with an internal locus of control … feel in charge of their own destiny and attribute success or failure to their own efforts.” People who know how to manage their attention and who habitually build robust mental models tend to earn more money and get better grades. Moreover, experiments show that anyone can learn to habitually construct mental models.” Goal Setting Teams succeed when everyone feels like they can speak up and when members show they are sensitive to how one another feels.” They know that productivity relies on making certain choices. The way we frame our daily decisions; the big ambitions we embrace and the easy goals we ignore; the cultures we establish as leaders to drive innovation; the way we interact with data: These are the things that separate the merely busy from the genuinely productive. People who are particularly good at managing their attention are in the habit of telling themselves stories all the time.”

Smarter Faster Better by Charles Duhigg - Sam Thomas Davies Smarter Faster Better by Charles Duhigg - Sam Thomas Davies

Duhigg finds this pattern across a wide range of occupations and settings — from neonatal intensive care units to corporate recruiting firms. Especially in challenging or chaotic situations, the most successful are those with a habit of telling stories about their experiences, generating theories and mental models. A corporate vice-president Duhigg interviewed says he looks for candidates “who describe their experiences as some kind of narrative. It’s a tip-off that someone has an instinct for connecting the dots and understanding how the world works at a deeper level.”On a personal level, we can apply this to something as mundane as a to-do list. A commonly traded productivity tip is to first write down easy tasks that can be completed and finished right away. A psychologist Duhigg interviewed says this is exactly the wrong way to approach a to-do list, and accomplishes little more than “mood repair.” Genuine productivity grows from starting a to-do list with larger goals and then splitting them up into bite-sized “smart” goals. There are numerous ways to build a Bayesian instinct. Some of them are as simple as looking at our past choices and asking ourselves: Why was I so certain things would turn out one way? Why was I wrong?”

Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in

The filmmakers behind Disney’s Frozen are nearly out of time and on the brink of catastrophe—until they shake up their team in just the right way, spurring a creative breakthrough that leads to one of the highest-grossing movies of all time. That moment is really the turning point,” Barbara Burian, a research psychologist at NASA who has studied Qantas Flight 32, told me. “Most of the time, when information overload occurs, we’re not aware it’s happening—and that’s why it’s so dangerous. So really good pilots push themselves to do a lot of ‘what if’ exercises before an event, running through scenarios in their heads. That way, when an emergency happens, they have models they can use.” If he hit everything just right, the plane would require 3,900 meters of asphalt. The longest runway was 4,000 meters. Mental models tell us how things or the world works and you should use them to help you focus. When you create mental pictures -commonly referred to as visualizing- you get a clearer idea of what you need to do when things are not going according to plan. The next element of productivity to consider is becoming a productive innovator. You may not think of yourself as an innovator, but innovation is likely a crucial aspect of your job. If you make your creative process more productive, you’ll increase your overall productivity. But what does being a productive innovator actually mean?

A pleasure to read . . . [Charles] Duhigg’s skill as a storyteller makes his book so engaging to read.” — The New York Times Book Review The decentralization of decision-making can make anyone into an expert—but if trust doesn’t exist, organizations lose access to the vast expertise we all carry within our heads. On a sunny morning in 2010, Qantas Airways flight 32 taxied onto a runway in Singapore, requested permission to begin the eight-hour flight to Sydney, and lifted into the bright sky.