Customer Reviews

Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long

5 star:		(49)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

David Rock and I share a similar view: People become more open to changing the behaviors which hold them back when they can understand the brain science behind it all. If you teach a man to do a task, he'll complete the task; if you teach him how his brain is wired, and how to optimize and build it, he'll be one of the most successful (and well-adjusted) people you've ever met.

In "Your Brain at Work" David speaks clearly and meaningfully -- with humor and relevance to everyday life -- about why it is our brains work better under some circumstances than others. He's frank about the limitations of our cognitive abilities -- even the brightest among us -- explaining the "why" and "how" of the limits, and, most importantly, "how to make it better" without frazzling yourself with multitasking, split attention, and other inefficient ways of trying to do your work.

He manages to do this with warmth and humor, all the while bringing the reader inside the findings of some of the top researchers in neuroscience.

I'm a neuropsychologist by training, and now do psychotherapy with high-functioning, successful people who complain about feeling depleted, overwhelmed, out of balance, and burned out. I'm grateful to have this book to supplement our work on the brain-based issues that create the perpetual sense of swimming upstream.

Your Brain at Work does an excellent job synthesizing a large body of scientific research on cognitive neuroscience and interpreting the results in a way that helps readers understand how the brain works and how to make it function more efficiently.

The book is laid out in a format of a theatrical play, where it introduces two ordinary people and follows their respective days. Both of the characters are facing a variety of challenges, very similar to the ones that millions of professionals deal with on a daily basis. After presenting a particular scenario and having one of the characters go through it, the author then performs a thorough analysis of what each of the characters did wrong and how they could have approached a particular challenge or activity in a much more efficient way. The best part is, obviously, that the analysis and the corrections in the behavior are all based on the most recent research in cognitive neuroscience.

The narrative is broken into different "acts" according to the progression of the work day of the characters and the type of mental processes that are being discussed. I think this is a particularly good structure because it a)personifies the cognitive challenges by bringing up prototypical characters that most of us can relate to b)organizes the context in a way that is logically progressive and easy to follow and c)makes the book easy for later reference.

As far as the content, to use the book's own language, a big dopamine rush is how I would describe it. It is really full of a good and useful insight, at the same time boasting a high level of writing that uses plenty of metaphors and is very easy to read (took me 5 days of reading before bed to finish). Some of the concepts that are tackled include mental energy management, dealing with pressure, mental blocks, creativity, need for certainty and autonomy, handling of relationships and managing expectations. The full list is a lot longer, and I think that once you start reading, you will notice that the implications of the issues addressed go far beyond just the workplace.

To conclude, I want to say that Your Brain at Work has really exceeded my expectations. It is based not on psycho babble and feel-good nonsense, as most books that are geared towards self improvement, but on solid scientific research. It doesn't instruct on what to do and how to feel, but explains the biological mechanism of action behind default human behavior and how it may lead us astray. In the ideal world, I think that all books that claim to assist with self improvement should be based on scientific research, but that's perhaps wishful thinking and a discussion for another day. Anyway, I highly recommend that you read this book, as I really feel that you will not be disappointed.

THE "GUTS" OF THIS BOOK

This is one of the most practical `neuro' books on the market at the moment. It is aimed at the `lay-person' rather than the `neuro -enthusiast'. The focus of the book is based on Rock's belief that ....'by understanding your brain, you increase your capacity to change your brain.' As a `neuro-enthusiast and translator' I agree with him completely, and so do neuro-specialists such as Dan Seigel. However, it might be more accurate in the case of this book to say `by understanding your mind, you increase your capacity to change your brain'. This book is about more than the physiology and processing power of the brain. Many of these practical tips have been tried and tested for years but we now have evidence to show why they work. Rock clearly outlines these for us.

WRITING STYLE

David Rock uses three parallel techniques to involve us. These run throughout the book:

* A story - The story of Emily and Paul allow us to identify with their thinking at work.
* A metaphor - The use of a stage and actors enable us to easily understand the roles of various parts of our thinking
* A reference to research and the physical brain - Research data that underpins the book. Mercifully he avoids using large numbers of neuro- jargon. He focuses on the role of the pre-frontal Cortex (the director) and the way in which we use our `director' in dealing with chemical responses. He introduces us to three positive chemicals; dopamine (feel good), nor-adrenaline (excitement) and oxytocin (collaboration).

The combination of all three of these works because it draws people with different thinking preferences into the content. For those of you are aware of the HBDI (Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument) the red dominants will follow the story, yellow's the metaphor and the blue's the data and analysis.

RELEVANCE

In the past 10 years, research into the functionality of the brain and ongoing discoveries around brain `plasticity' have changed our minds for ever. Many old theories and beliefs have been reinforced and others discredited. The Buddhist belief that `mindfulness' and focus improves the mind now has tangible proof (through PET scanning). On the other hand, multi-tasking, that previously touted holy-grail of efficiency, has been largely debunked. This is seriously important for all of us involved in developing human potential. It will not be a flash-in-the-pan any more than the understanding of the basis and treatment of infection was over 100 years ago.

THE SOCIAL MIND

Rock spends a large part of his book examining the consequences of our human social `wiring'. I recently read and enjoyed `The Power of Collective Wisdom'. This book added some of the missing pieces to that excellent book. I advise anyone interested in developing the potential of teams or organizations to read these two together.

CONCLUSION

Buy this book and read it. This is the way of the future. In a few years time, there will be a huge number of titles beginning with `neuro' or its equivalent. David Rock makes understanding this future more easy, this is the beginning of something important for us all.

What I like most about David Rock's books is the experience my brain and mind and "dopamine" center have when I read whatever he writes. The bump to my dopamine from this present book is the format of following a story of a couple who are leading and living overly busy and harried lives (sound like anyone you know?), followed by a deep dive into their brains and minds to tell you what those inner areas are going through, followed by lessons and applications that I can use to help me be more mindful, in control and more effective in my life.

This book has just enough research to pass my credibility radar with flying colors, great practical application to use immediately and a great story to identify with.

It's a triple treat.

Mark Goulston
author of Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone
syndicated Tribune columnist
blogger for Huffington Post, Fast Company, Psychology Today and Minyanville

I would definitely gives this book 5 stars. It is a great general information book on how your brain works and and it is recommended by more then a few brain experts. It also gives some good day to day tips on how to run your life better. Sadly though I am going to substrack a star or two due to the shameless self promotion of self help websites, 30k a year grade schools and other money grubbers at the end of the book. This definitely made me put my threat level up as they would say. David rock is definitely knowledgeable about his field, but he also somewhat comes off as a used car salesman. This book is a great primer, but i would be wary of the other products.

This book should be on the shelf of every coach, therapist, parent, manager, leader... I think you get the point- I love it. In this fast paced world of high demands and not enough time in a day to do it all, we need strategies to conserve our precious energy, access more and focus on what matters most. David Rock gives us just that. I now use this book in my life coaching practice to improve my coaching and I have also begun to teach these techniques to clients so they can understand their brain and make different choices. It is a win-win.

I liked the metaphor that David used throughout to help put a picture to this complex subject. This is not an easy summer read. I found that I had to commit to reading, taking notes and going back over it again to "get it". And the time and effort was all worth while.

My brain used to feel much more mysterious to me. As someone who values vitality and resiliency in herself and in my ability to help others achieve higher levels, this information is invaluable. I would say that it has changed my life. Thank you David!

Anne Jolles
Life Coach, Author and Speaker
[...] [...]

I think this book is very good at describing the latest in neuroscience research. The author falls just a bit short in transforming that information into something that most folks can find accessible. In particular, I think he would be very hard for a non-native English speaker to follow. This strikes me as too bad, as folks who work daily in their non-native language (I think) are some of the people who most could see some benefit from the ideas he presents: especially pertaining to emotions in the work context.

So I like it, but I recommend it only to people who are willing to give it a lot of time to figure it out and to have it sink in. And I recommend non-native speakers read it with someone else to help them.

I know what you're thinking: a book on how to use your brain? It's not so intuitive as you think. As it turns out, the brain has been one of the least understood `realms' in science, and only very recently are some huge discoveries being made that totally change the way we view, and hopefully, use it.

Ok, so let's start with one of the oldest most clichéd metaphors out there: your brain is a computer. It's a good one. Our brain can save, store, and interpret, and manipulate terabytes of data per day. It takes in and saves audio files, visuals at super high res, tons of systems, names, trivia, thousands of words, in multiple languages, all interlinked for instant access. But we find the brain so much more powerful and creative than actual Personal computers (and even super-computers), that we make the fatal mistake of assuming that our brains can do anything. They can't, mostly because of evolution.

You see, we took tens of thousands, if not millions of years to evolve into the current homo-sapien brain. But in just the last 30 years of `Computing Evolution': the computer industry has exploded with innovation in both hardware and software: modern PC's are getting faster and more capable every year. Meanwhile, our brains are pretty much the same as they were 100,000 years ago. It turns out our brains are like your 5 year old Dell laptop that keeps freezing up whenever we have more than five programs running: we suck at multitasking. And yet, Multitasking has been a buzzword for years now. Ever since we got hooked on emails, text messages and Instant messaging clients, we've convinced ourselves that we're really working at 100% capacity. We're not. We're just bouncing from one stimuli to the next.

Although we stink at serious multitasking, we're really good at reconfiguring a handful of ideas (about 4). Think about going to the mall, doing a little shopping, then stopping by the bank, and finally picking up laundry and going home. What sounds like a blah afternoon, is actually a miracle of `map' modelling, and mental simulation. Plotting out the whole trip in terms of Geography, Location, Time, with a reasonably accurate estimate of when you'll return home,Takeout Chinese food in hand, is the power of parallel processing.

Not only should we be simplifying the number of things our brain is trying to understand and resolve, we need to give it lots of energy as well.Your brain needs energy and rest to be creative, regardless of your IQ. That means scheduling parts of the day when you can actually be creative. Musicians often spend all night in the recording studio (often intoxicated), but get most of their writing done in the early morning. Why? Because the nature of combining different elements, different lyrics and melodies-the creative process-needs energy and rest.

And rest doesn't just mean sleep. Scientists, over and over, are finding that some form of self-reflection, or meditation, is the key to coming up with solutions to nagging problems. We consider this the sub-conscious mind `taking over' and trying to solve a problem that your conscious mind has been fretting over for days.

There is so much great stuff in here, about interpersonal relationships and working with colleagues and family members, but I agonized over whether to recommend this book, because it is heavy. It's a book about how your brain works (arguably more complex than understanding the nature of the universe), but done so well and thoughtfully, that it serves as a very cool user manual for, well, homo sapiens. Enjoy, and take lots of notes!

More reviews like this on 21tiger

If you want a book that goes beyond beating distractions but also understanding why they are frankly so distracting then this book is great. It helps you better understand the way that you work which arms you with exactly what you need to becoming more productive and in control.

I really enjoyed the examination that the books takes into exactly why your brain responds the way it does and the simple strategies you can use to be more in control. Probably most importantly it helps you understand the root cause of the issues that once identified can more easily be rectified.

The book is easy to read but with enough detail to be really engaging. It will appeal to those people who want to understand 'the why' rather than just 'the how'. Providing before and after examples throughout the book also makes each topic far more engaging because they are easy to relate to.

All in all, if you are interested in improving your productivity in ways that are permanent, which means changing the way you do things, then make some time to read this book.

Im about a quarter of the way through and i already feel compelled to write a positive review. At first I found it hard to get into the book but it wasn't long before i found myself enthralled with the book. I can see why it was given such rave reviews. It is well written for it's audience. It brakes down the brain, a very complex thing, into very a very digestible manner. The metaphors the author makes are easy to understand. The author obviously takes into account that her audience will be people who lack focus and wrote the book with that in mind. The chapters flow nicely and have short sections to the chapters which give you places to pause in cause you get distracted. With each chapter I read I already see myself using my brain better and becoming less mentally drained. This book is a good read for anyone, and I mean ANYONE, who has a brain and would like to use it more effectively. At first I wanted to give it 4 stars because not all of the metaphors were all that easy to grasp at first, but then I realize that she is trying to simplify a very complex subject. Besides, I'm not through with the book. Im sure this book will have a profound effect on the way I use my brain.

Don't hesitate to buy this book!