1: Back in 1991, Amy Edmondson, a first-year Harvard PhD student, began visiting two Boston hospital wards.

She was studying organizational behavior and was “on the prowl for a dissertation topic,” Charles Duhigg writes in Smarter Faster Better: The Transformative Power of Real Productivity.

Her idea was that good teamwork would reduce medical mistakes. That “the units with the strongest sense of teamwork,” Charles notes, “would have the … continue reading

1: “If I was going to reach my goals, something would have to change,” Tynan writes in Superhuman by Habit.

“I went to sleep at random hours late at night and woke up in the mid-afternoon. My vehicle registrations and inspections were always delinquent, sometimes by years. I was consistently late to almost everything,” Tynan writes.

“The lengths of time by which I procrastinated on important things could be … continue reading

1: Google’s People Analytics group wanted to understand how to build the perfect team.

Google has consistently been ranked by Fortune magazine as one of America’s top workplaces.

This result was no accident. “Even as it had grown to fifty-three thousand employees, Google had devoted enormous resources to studying workers’ happiness and productivity,” Charles Duhigg writes in Smarter Faster Better: The Transformative Power of Real Productivity.

The People Analytics … continue reading

1: “Julia Rozovsky was twenty-five years old and uncertain what to do with her life when she decided it was time for a change,” Charles Duhigg writes in Smarter Faster Better: The Transformative Power of Real Productivity.

After graduating from Tufts, Julia worked for a consulting firm, but she didn’t find it satisfying. She then worked as a researcher for two professors at Harvard, which Julia enjoyed, but wasn’t … continue reading

1: Why do some seniors thrive in nursing homes while others experience rapid physical and mental declines?

The answer may surprise you.

Those who flourish tend to be those who rebel “against the rigid schedules, set menus, and strict rules that the nursing homes tried to force upon them,” Charles Duhigg writes in Smarter Faster Better: The Transformative Power of Real Productivity.

What do researchers call this group? The … continue reading

1: When Eric Quintanilla told his wife and his mother he was considering joining the Marines, neither thought it was a good idea.

The night before, he talked to a former high school classmate at a party. That friend had just finished basic training and was twenty pounds lighter and ripped, Charles Duhigg writes in Smarter Faster Better: The Transformative Power of Real Productivity.

“He was telling jokes and … continue reading