Smarter Faster Better
Charles Duhigg · 2016
Smarter Faster Better (2016) is a book by Charles Duhigg on Effectiveness. Pulitzer-winning journalist Charles Duhigg distills eight evidence-based principles that separate the most productive people and teams from everyone else, showing that real productivity isn't about doing more, but about thinking differently about your choices, goals, and attention.
Eight evidence-based principles, motivation, focus, goals, behind highly productive people and teams.
Three of the ideas you’ll keep
The Clif summary of Smarter Faster Better pulls out 7 insights. Here are the first three.
- Manufacture motivation by turning chores into choices: make a small, autonomous decision (even an arbitrary one) before a dreaded task, then connect it to a deeper value or goal so the effort feels self-directed.
- On teams, *how* people interact beats *who* is on the team, protect psychological safety by ensuring roughly equal speaking time and visibly responding to teammates' emotions.
- Beat 'cognitive tunneling' by building mental models: narrate to yourself what should happen next so reality has something to compare against, and you direct attention instead of just reacting.
The other 4 — and the full 11-minute summary — are in the app.
What’s inside: 9 chapters
The whole summary runs about 11 minutes, read or listened to.
- Motivation: Turn Chores Into Choices
- Teams: Psychological Safety Beats Talent
- Focus: Build Mental Models to Beat Cognitive Tunneling
- Goal Setting: Pair Stretch Goals With SMART Goals
- Managing Others: Push Decisions to the Edge
- Decision Making: Think in Probabilities
- Innovation: Become an Idea Broker
- Absorbing Data: Make Information Harder to Use
- Putting It All Together
Finish Smarter Faster Better tonight.
Read or listen to the full summary in about 11 minutes, then keep the ideas with a minute of review a day. Start with the 2-minute quiz — no card required.
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