Make Your Brain Work summary

While it may sound odd at first, you have an internal CEO. 

There is a region of your brain right behind the center of your forehead known as the Prefrontal Cortex, or PFC. This region of the brain is like a control center: responsible for prioritizing tasks, making decisions, and regulating responses. As these are all high-level functions for the brain orchestrating reactions across multiple regions, the prefrontal cortex also tires easily and requires lots of energy to function.

This role of the prefrontal cortex in your brain matters deeply for everyday life. To understand why, let’s imagine a typical Monday morning for a middle manager in a mid-sized company. They arrive early to the office to get ahead of a packed to-do list from Friday, but find that over the weekend their inbox has been flooded with urgent requests from clients and colleagues. While skimming through to get a sense of what can be handled quickly, the department secretary pops in announcing an all-hands meeting has been called in an hour. The flashing red light on the phone makes it clear that messages have also piled up.

Now in a panic, our fearless manager dives into small tasks before the meeting rationalizing that tackling the small things will help them get ahead. By noon, their carefully curated to-do list is scrapped, their overwhelmed brain has shut down, they’ve started snapping at colleagues, and complaining at the water cooler about overwhelming stress.

But the day could go very differently if the prefrontal cortex is functioning optimally. This region of the brain is impaired by the flood of cortisol and adrenaline that chronic or acute stress kicks off in the body. So let’s walk through that morning one more time with the PFC at its best.

Instead of panicking at the pile of emails, messages, or requests, our middle manager takes ten minutes to calmly assess the situation and prioritize the day. Rather than diving into short tasks like quick-response emails to feel a quick dopamine rush of accomplishment, they stop and clearly visualize the most important tasks of the day being accomplished. With this image firmly in mind, they start to prioritize the tasks that are truly urgent, and put the rest into a folder to consider after lunch.

When the secretary pops in to announce a last-minute meeting, it is clear that this meeting would sabotage an already overpacked schedule. So our clear-headed manager politely declines citing the last-minute notice. They also make a note to talk to upper management at the next opportunity to request more advanced notice on any important meetings going forward.

With the day now mapped out, our self-managed manager can tackle the most urgent and complex tasks while their higher brain functions are still focused and fresh. They silence all notifications, schedule in regular breaks to give their brain time to recover, and drink water because it keeps their brain functioning at peak performance. Instead of snapping at colleagues who make additional requests, they are able to either decline, delegate, or propose a realistic timeline understanding their current workload. 

The best part is that at the end of the day our middle manager isn’t worn out, and feeling defeated. They might not have accomplished everything, of course, but the same circumstances delivered much more productive and positive results for everyone at the office.