Your brain at work
Meet Emily and Paul: The parents of two young children, Emily is the newly promoted VP of marketing at a large corporation while Paul works from home or from clients' offices as an independent IT consultant. Their lives, like all of ours, are filled with a bewildering blizzard of emails, phone calls, yet more emails, meetings, projects, proposals, and plans. Just staying ahead of the storm has become a seemingly insurmountable task. In this book, we travel inside Emily and Paul's brains as they attempt to sort the vast quantities of information they're presented with, figure out how to prioritize it, organize it and act on it. Fortunately for Emily and Paul, they're in good hands: David Rock knows how the brain works-and more specifically, how it works in a work setting. Rock shows how it's possible for Emily and Paul, and thus the reader, not only to survive in today's overwhelming work environment but succeed in it-and still feel energized and accomplished at the end of the day.
Stats for nerds
11recommend
27mentions
16people
2011–2023years
81% recommend19% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- My breakthrough idea come mostly when I'm exercising (read: running). It's one of the reasons I don't run with music / audio. Instead, it's just me and the road.
Initially, I thought it was a personal quirk. Then I read the book "Your Brain at Work" by David Rock. At this point, I'm due for a re-read.
https://www.amazon.com/Your-Brain-Work-Revised-Updated/dp/00...
- As an adult human, my life experience contains too many variables to reach scientific certainty about the entire causal chain.
However, my early 30s were still marked with a heavy insecurity, ennui, lack of direction, failure to focus and achieve in the workplace, and failed romantic endeavors.
I began with work on boundaries and understanding self by Henry Cloud, ways to achieve like Find Your Strengths, and even business related work like Good to Great.
Flow was an excellent part of this collection, as it helped me turn work into something more enjoyable and progressive. Drive was very neat, and I really enjoyed Your Brain at Work.
I also have a personal interest in education, so I read a lot on that, including by Sir Ken Robinson. And I read Power of Habit.
Overall I think the things I learned improved my habits at home and at work, grounded me, improved my confidence, and made me a better resource for others. (Of course I must not assume I always have the answer or am absolutely right just because I read things in a book.) In general when I have deep conversations, I seem to be able to follow along and better understand how people work and how relationships work.
I'm very happy with my job, feeling very productive, significant and learning new skills (in my 40s). I've been married 6 years and have a very high satisfaction with our marriage. There's still a struggle with getting everything done I want, like gathering firewood for the winter, but largely I feel that I rise to meet my responsibilities.
Now I can't say how much came from dedicating time and effort into learning, and how much comes naturally from experience and age. But I certainly don't regret any of that self-education today.
- I've solved plenty of nagging problems e.g., what missing from this code?) 20 to 30 mins into a 60 min run. The rhythm and the disconnect gives my mind just enough space to step back, rethink, and then solve.
Btw, the book "Your Brain at Work" by David Rock is worth a read if reading is your thing.
- "The Known World" By Edward P. Jones, Historical fiction about former slaves who own slaves, https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/edward-p-jones
"Your Brain At work" - Practical insight into how emotions affect thinking, limitations of cognition, etc. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6899290-your-brain-at-wo...
Cryptonomicon! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptonomicon
Finally, if you happen to be Finnish: "Alastalon Salissa", A novel ahead of its time. Not translated unfortunately, but should be. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alastalon_salissa
- Two things to share.
1) The book Your Brain at Work by David Rock does a great job explaining the brain and how to tilt it in your favor, more often.
2) I have solved more problems and had more great ideas 3+ miles into a run than any place else. There's something to be said for thinking less and not forcing the brain into a corner.
- The brain is like a muscle. But the info age isn't a gym workout. It's doing curls with cans of soda. The info age "workout" creates fatigue, not muscle.
While, it's not necessarily info age / distraction age centric, I suggest checking out the book "Your Brain at Work" by David Rock.
