Smarter Faster Better

Charles Duhigg’s personal development book, Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business (2016), explores the science of productivity and how we can influence ourselves to get more done each day. Duhigg, a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist and the author of numerous nonfiction books, reported for the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. He was part of the team that won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting.

Duhigg wrote Smarter Faster Better after feeling overwhelmed by his schedule and his endless to-do list. He wondered how some people juggle countless responsibilities and others struggle to get anything done. After spending many years researching the science of productivity, he realized that productive people adopt eight key philosophies for living and getting things done—motivation, teamwork, setting goals, making decisions, getting creative, staying focused, and taking every opportunity to learn something new.

Smarter Faster Better explores these eight key concepts, observing that we can all improve our productivity levels if we want to. Thus, the thesis of the book is that productivity is about making certain choices for certain reasons; it is not about spending hours slaving at a desk—the most productive people, Duhigg explains, have a work-life balance. We don’t need to work every day of the year. We simply need to use our time better.



Duhigg’s first concept, motivation, stems from a basic neurological finding—people are more productive when they feel in control of their environment and the choices they are making. For example, managers get more done because they are in control of the tasks they do each day. They also know that each mundane task serves a greater purpose. We can all be more productive by remembering what motivates us. Perhaps we want to learn a new skill, but the lessons are mundane. We can choose to see these lessons as exciting stepping-stones to our personal development instead of resenting them. That is how productive people progress while others fall behind.

Productive people know they can often achieve more by working as part of a larger team. Often, we attempt to take on too much ourselves, and we end up feeling overwhelmed and burnt out. By working as a team, we can divide the workload, exchange information, and share skills. This is how, for example, film studios write, shoot, and produce movies under huge time pressure.

In the average office, team leaders and managers supervise groups of staff. These leaders motivate teams, ensure they know that their contributions are valued, and offer advice and support when necessary. Productive teams work well because they thrive under nurturing, encouraging superiors.



We must also, Duhigg says, set concrete goals. By breaking our tasks into smaller, manageable chunks, we can get through our to-do list much quicker. Sometimes, we drag our heels and struggle to get work done simply because we don’t know where to start. Every productive person Duhigg meets is a goal-setter.

Getting things done means giving a task our undivided attention. This is a skill that many of us struggle with, Duhigg explains. It is up to us to choose a task to focus on and give it our full concentration. The harder we focus, the quicker we will complete the task, or the more progress we will make. For example, a study session is productive if we focus on a learning outcome. It is less productive if we spend half the session browsing social media.

Having focus is a choice. We can choose, for example, whether to refresh our inbox constantly or close our emails for an hour to finish a task. Making decisions make us feel in control. This idea of control ties back to Duhigg’s earlier proposal that productive people generally feel in control of their environment.



Duhigg understands that many of us don’t have the luxury of choosing our own workday. However, even something as simple as choosing when to check our emails is a decision. We can all make more decisions every day, leading us to feel more empowered and productive. Productive people, Duhigg argues, are productive because they choose to be.

Productive people are often creative, not only in the artistic sense. Being creative means using old ideas in new ways, using our intuition, and opening ourselves up to new experiences. Duhigg encourages us to get up and walk away from our computer screens to let our subconscious work on our problems—we’re more likely to come up with a creative solution to a problem if we give ourselves space to think.

Finally, Duhigg asserts that productive people are always looking for ways to expand their minds, learning something new, or planning new goals. They constantly strive for self-improvement. As Smarter Faster Better shows, we all have the same number of hours in a day. It is simply up to us how we use those hours.