Your Brain at Work summary

In many ways, advances in modern technology have certainly made our lives easier. But the convenience they provide also comes at a great cost to our ability to focus: the ubiquity of always-on technologies, like the internet and smartphones, means that we have more potential distractions in our lives than ever before.

Whenever we're distracted, our attention is diverted, and refocusing that attention takes time and effort.

Which would you watch more intently: a once-in-a-lifetime solar eclipse that lasts only a minute, or the tree outside your window?

If you're like most people, you focus better when you're faced with a tight deadline, or when you are presented with something new and interesting.

Have you ever had to deal with a challenging problem that demanded a creative solution, but were simply unable to get past a certain point? It's very common for people to “hit a wall” in their thinking: to reach, in other words, a mental impasse.

Often, the only way to break through this wall is through insight – a perfect solution that seems to suddenly appear out of nowhere, and which recombines what we already know in a brand new way.

Improving the way your mind works, and thus increasing your ability to focus, first requires that you're able to observe your own thinking. This process is known as mindfulness, a concept that also refers to living in the present, having a real-time awareness of our experiences, and an acceptance of what is.

Although most people are able to be mindful to some extent, those who practice mindfulness and become adept at it have far more control over what they pay attention to.

We've all experienced uncertainty and lack of control, and the deep emotional responses they trigger. Perhaps this happens while you're waiting to hear about that job you applied for, or when you're buried under a pile of work so high that you can't possibly manage it.

But why do we respond this way to uncertainty and the sense that we're not in control?

Have you ever become so excited over a certain prospect – say, when you truly believe you were just about to win a game of Texas Hold 'Em – that you felt terrible when it didn't transpire?

Why do unmet expectations make us feel so bad?

We often don’t think our feelings of relatedness to others, and of fairness, are crucial to our physical survival, but, actually, they’re as important as food and water.

This is because, for the brain, feeling socially connected and able to relate to others is a primary reward.

If you’ve ever gotten a kick out of winning an argument, spent money on clothes from a designer fashion store, or even felt good about meeting someone worse off than yourself, you know that feeling an increase in status can trigger a sense of reward.

This is because when we perceive an increase in our status, we get a positive emotional response: our dopamine and serotonin levels (chemicals essential to happiness) go up, and our cortisol levels (an indicator of stress) go down.

Have you ever tried to change another person’s thinking? We often believe the best approach is to give that person lots of feedback, but giving feedback actually doesn’t help improve performance. Instead, real change can occur only when the other person sees his errors for himself.

The reason that giving feedback is so ineffective is that is tends to make people extremely anxious. In fact, as one study revealed, when people hit an impasse in their thinking, telling them what to do so they can overcome the block actually helps them only 8 percent of the time, while telling them what not to do helps just 5 percent of the time.

The key message in this book:

It is a common misconception that, if you aren’t delivering your best work, you should simply try harder. Often, however, the brain just needs more fuel and rewards to keep going. The reason for this is that your brain gets tired and distracted easily, and is strongly rewarded by status, certainty and control. So, for your brain to work optimally, it helps to eliminate day-to-day distractions, find out ways to have more choice and autonomy in your life, and, most importantly, train your ability to reflect on your thinking.