Smarter Faster Better: The Transformative Power of Real Productivity

The bestselling author of The Power of Habit explores the science of productivity, and why, in today’s world, managing how you think—rather than what you think about—can transform your ability to do what needs to be done.

Productivity, recent studies suggest, isn’t always about driving ourselves toward greater “efficiency.” Rather, real productivity relies on managing how we think, identify goals, construct teams, and make decisions.

This book explores eight concepts that are critical to increasing productivity, illustrated by compelling case studies. It introduces us to basic training in the U.S. Marine Corps, where the internal locus of control is exploited to increase self-motivation, and shows us how the principles of lean manufacturing—in which decision-making power is pushed to the lowest levels of the hierarchy—allowed the FBI to finally produce a new software system that had eluded them for years. It also explores how Disney Animation made Frozen into a record success by encouraging a certain kind of tension among animation teams - a version of what biologists refer to as the Intermediate Disturbance Hypothesis, which posits that nature is most creative when crises occur, but not so many that they wipe everything out.

With the combination of relentless curiosity, deep reporting, and rich story-telling that defined The Power of Habit, this book takes readers from neurology laboratories to World Series poker showdowns to Google’s brainstorming sessions and illustrates how we can all increase productivity in our lives.