Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business

In Smarter Faster Better, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Charles Duhigg moves beyond the terrain of habit formation to dissect the architecture of productivity itself. The book argues that true efficiency is not about working longer hours or employing new gadgets, but about fundamentally reshaping how we manage our attention, make decisions, and motivate ourselves. It posits that productivity is a learnable skill, rooted in specific cognitive processes that can be understood and harnessed.

Duhigg structures his investigation around eight core concepts that underpin effective performance: motivation, teams, focus, goal setting, managing others, decision making, innovation, and absorbing data. Each chapter blends cutting-edge neuroscience and psychology with vivid narrative case studies, from the cockpit of a crashing Qantas Airbus to the writers' room of Saturday Night Live. The research demonstrates, for instance, how creating a sense of agency—even an illusory one—can ignite motivation, or how the most successful teams at Google were distinguished not by IQ but by norms of psychological safety.

The methodology hinges on translating abstract scientific findings into concrete mental disciplines. Readers learn why visualizing the steps of a process is more effective than visualizing success, how to construct 'mental models' to manage information overload, and why forcing teams to debate and disagree can catalyze innovation. The book provides a toolkit for moving from being merely busy to being genuinely productive by managing the systems of thought that precede action.

Smarter Faster Better serves as an essential text for managers, entrepreneurs, and any knowledge worker seeking a scientific foundation for achievement. It builds upon the behavioral framework of Duhigg's earlier work, The Power of Habit, by addressing the higher-order cognitive functions that determine how effectively we deploy our energy and intellect in an increasingly complex world.

The critical consensus positions this as a worthwhile but somewhat fragmented successor to The Power of Habit. Readers praise its research-backed, actionable insights—particularly on team dynamics and motivation—and find its real-world case studies compelling. A significant contingent, however, finds the book less cohesive than its predecessor, perceiving it as a collection of strong but loosely connected essays rather than a unified thesis. The material is deemed highly valuable for managers and those seeking practical frameworks, even if the overall narrative arc feels less transformative.