Duhigg tells of a pilot who landed an Airbus during a huge system failure by thinking about the plane in a different way, as if it were a single-engine Cessna. Other suggestions are less obvious, but they might not be that reliable as practical advice.

Are there really many people who need reminding that we live in an uncertain world? I enjoyed reading about Annie Duke, cognitive scientist turned poker player, but the upshot of this chapter was: When you plan for the future, try to reason in terms of probability, not certainty. We learn that it’s good for an organization to allow people to participate and express their views. He reminds us that it’s important to set goals, both specific and long-term. Unlike a lot of contributors to this genre, he’s a journalist, not a professor, and it shows in his prose, as when he casually describes someone as having “a passion for long skirts and Hooters chicken wings.”īut it’s not clear that his book lives up to its subtitle, “The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business.” Many of Duhigg’s conclusions seem less like secrets and more like common sense. agents racing to rescue a kidnapping victim, and a poker player competing in a $2 million winner-take-all tournament. Many of the stories are terrific my favorites were about the early seasons of “Saturday Night Live,” F.B.I. It has eight main chapters, each focusing on a single idea about how to increase productivity in business or in life, each telling a story of how the idea works in practice. The New York Times journalist Charles Duhigg has already contributed to this genre with his first book, “The Power of Habit,” which was an engagingly deep dive into the psychology of how routines are formed and modified. Like many of us, Obama is influenced by the literature that draws upon psychology, neuroscience and behavioral economics to tell us how to be happier and more successful. You need to routinize yourself.” The studies that Obama was referring to suggest that if you exhaust your decision-making capacity with unnecessary choices, you’ll end up making mistakes when it really matters. When interviewed by Michael Lewis a few years ago, Obama explained that he wears only gray or blue suits so as to cut down the choices he has to make each day, and then he cited research showing that “you need to focus your decision-making energy. SMARTER FASTER BETTER The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business By Charles Duhigg Illustrated.

Smarter faster better key concepts