Two Awesome Hours: Science-Based Strategies to Harness Your Best Time and Get Your Most Important Work Done - Hardcover

Davis, Josh

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0062326112 ISBN 13: 9780062326119

Publisher: HarperOne, 2015

Synopsis

Feeling overwhelmed with work and life demands? Rushing, multitasking, or relying on fancy devices and apps won't help. The answer is to create the conditions for two awesome hours of peak productivity per day.

Drawing on cutting-edge neuroscience, Josh Davis, director of research at the NeuroLeadership Institute explains clearly that our brains and bodies operate according to complex biological needs that, when leveraged intelligently, can make us incredibly effective. From what and when we eat, to when we tackle tasks or disengage how we plan our activities has a huge impact on performance. Davis shows us how we can create the conditions for two awesome hours of effective mental performance by:

• Recognizing when to effective flip the switch on our automatic thinking;
• Scheduling tasks based on their processing demand and recovery time;
• Learning how to direct attention, rather than avoid distractions;
• Feeding and moving our bodies in ways that prep us for success;
• Identifying what matters in our environment to be at the top of our mental game.

We are capable of impressive feats of comprehension, motivation, thinking, and performance when our brain and biological systems are functioning optimally. Two Awesome Hours will show you how to be your most productive every day.

About this title

Review:

“Most of the ‘personal productivity’ advice out there—and there is plenty of it—seems designed to make the hamster run a little faster in the wheel...You are NOT a hamster. Two Awesome Hours will show you how to stop working like one.” (Heidi Grant Halvorson, Ph.D., Associate Director of the Motivation Science Center at Columbia Business School, and author of the national bestseller Nine Things Successful People Do Differently)

“Exceedingly interesting and exceptionally practical. Davis offers suggestions that are straightforward, easy to apply, and immediately useful. I spent two awesome hours reading this book last night and it changed the way I’m working today.” (Peter Bregman, bestselling author of 18 Minutes and Four Seconds)

“Josh Davis has proposed a counter-intuitive solution to a problem plaguing us all: We can’t get everything done—not even close—anymore. So maybe we should stop trying. And instead follow the research on how to have a few hours of breakthrough productivity, just on the things that truly matter.” (David Rock, Director of the NeuroLeadership Institute and author of Your Brain at Work)

“Josh Davis shows us that trying to emulate a computer’s efficiency to manage our time is a lost cause. His approachable and enjoyable writing style brings behavioral science to life, pointing out the moments that really can make a difference in a productive work day, and...a more satisfying downtime.” (R. Michael Hendrix, Partner, IDEO)

From the Back Cover:

Whether we love our jobs or not, the amount of work on our plate has reached unsustainable levels. We start each workday anxious about how we will get it all done, and which important tasks will have to be sacrificed—again—so we can keep our heads above water. We often respond to our out-of-control to-do lists by focusing on being more efficient—trying to get more done in less time.

According to Josh Davis, Ph.D., we're going about it the wrong way. The answer is not to get more done faster, but rather to create the conditions for at least two awesome hours of peak productivity each day.

Neuroscience and psychology research is revealing what those conditions are. Drawing on this research, Davis explains that our minds operate according to complex factors that, when leveraged the right way, can make us truly effective. Davis shows us five deceptively simple strategies to create the conditions for incredible productivity and to restore sanity and balance to our lives:

• Maximize the moments in our day when we are between tasks, intentionally choosing what to tackle next
• Schedule tasks based on their cognitive and emotional demands
• Learn how to direct attention
• Feed and move our bodies for short-term benefit
• Identify how our environment affects our focus and alertness

We are capable of impressive feats of comprehension, motivation, and performance when our psychological and biological systems are functioning optimally. Two Awesome Hours will show us how to be our most productive every day.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperOne
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0062326112
• ISBN 13: 9780062326119
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 192