Your Brain’s Ideal Schedule - HBR
interview with Ron Friedman, Ph.D., author of The Best Place to Work,
on how to structure your day to get the most done.
Proactive vs Reactive (Postpone emails)
"... start out day by checking our email, or listening to our voice mail... being responsive first thing in the morning is really cognitively expensive. And for one thing, it’s because it prevents us from leveraging our best hours.
Typically, we have a window of about three hours where we’re really, really focused. We’re able to have some strong contributions in terms of planning, in terms of thinking, in terms of speaking well. And if we end up squandering those first three hours reacting to other people’s priorities for us, which is ultimately what voice mail, or email is, is a list of other people’s requests for our time, that ends up using up our best hours and we’re not quite as effective as we could be.
The other a major reason being response first thing is not a good idea is because it puts you in a reactive mindset. So you’re looking outward for direction, rather than looking inward. And switching from a proactive to a reactive mindset is easy, but doing the reverse is much, much harder."
Play vs Work
"...play is anything that’s something you do for fun, but without necessarily having a goal, or a purpose behind it
... making time for play can make you more successful at work. Particularly if you’re work involves creative thinking.
...when we’re engaged in play, we’re rewarded for taking risk. Like in a video game, or playing sports, that puts you in a risk taking mindset, which could be beneficial
... in video games, you get... immediate feedback... recognition when we succeed... progressive difficulty.
Meaning vs Happiness
"...emotions really serve as guideposts in terms of whether or not we’re doing the right things both for our physical and mental health. And so when you’re experiencing negative emotions, there’s a temptation to want to sweep those negative emotions under the rug and kind of power through.
...by acknowledging negative emotions, we can actually make improvements in our lives that ultimately lead us to be happier."
Ed Deci, the founder of self determination theory, which is the basis of Daniel Pink’s book, Drive:
...happiness is a bunch of crap... if you’re ignoring your negative emotions, then you can’t live a full life.
... if you’re working to create something of value, not every day is going to be a picnic.
... it’s better to acknowledge and respond to your negative emotions than again, to just to simply sweep them underneath the rug in an effort to feel happy..."
"In The Best Place to Work, award-winning psychologist Ron Friedman, Ph.D. uses the latest research from the fields of motivation, creativity, behavioral economics, neuroscience, and management to reveal what really makes us successful at work."
Theory - selfdeterminationtheory.org
"...People are centrally concerned with motivation — how to move themselves or others to act
...Conditions supporting the individual’s experience of autonomy, competence,and relatedness are argued to foster the most volitional and high quality forms of motivation and engagement..."
Drive – Daniel H. Pink
"...examines the three elements of true motivation—autonomy, mastery, and purpose—and offers smart and surprising techniques for putting these into action."
