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    This document summarizes key points from the book "Your Brain at Work" by David Rock. It explains that the brain can be thought of as having a mental stage, with the prefrontal cortex acting as a stage director. The stage can only hold about 4 pieces of information at once and has one spotlight of attention. Over the course of a workday, the stage director becomes tired and less effective at keeping unwanted distractions off the stage. Some ways to deal with these limitations include focusing on 1-2 tasks at a time, scheduling tasks serially, and saving demanding work for the morning when the stage director is freshest.

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    This document summarizes key points from the book "Your Brain at Work" by David Rock. It explains that the brain can be thought of as having a mental stage, with the prefrontal cortex acting as a stage director. The stage can only hold about 4 pieces of information at once and has one spotlight of attention. Over the course of a workday, the stage director becomes tired and less effective at keeping unwanted distractions off the stage. Some ways to deal with these limitations include focusing on 1-2 tasks at a time, scheduling tasks serially, and saving demanding work for the morning when the stage director is freshest.

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    1K views1 page

    Your Brain at Work

    Uploaded by

    daniela
    This document summarizes key points from the book "Your Brain at Work" by David Rock. It explains that the brain can be thought of as having a mental stage, with the prefrontal cortex acting as a stage director. The stage can only hold about 4 pieces of information at once and has one spotlight of attention. Over the course of a workday, the stage director becomes tired and less effective at keeping unwanted distractions off the stage. Some ways to deal with these limitations include focusing on 1-2 tasks at a time, scheduling tasks serially, and saving demanding work for the morning when the stage director is freshest.

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    of 1

    Insights 

    from Your Brain at Work by David Rock
    How well do you know your brain? 
    Can you explain what your brain is doing when you open up your laptop to work, open a textbook to study, or conduct a meeting? 

    In the book “Your Brain at Work” author David Rock uses the latest neuroscience to explain what your brain is doing while you work.  

    Rock says your mind is like a theater. The stage in your mental theater represents your short‐term working memory, and it's controlled by 
    your prefrontal cortex (the brain region just behind your forehead). 

    During the workday you can use your stage to perform five functions: understanding, recalling, memorizing, inhibiting, and deciding. To 
    remember these five functions, think of the acronym: U.R. M.In.D. 

    To perform these five functions, you need actors, audience members, and a stage director. Actors on stage represent objects, tasks, and 
    pieces of information you're focused on at any one moment. This sentence is currently an actor on your stage. 

    Audience members are maps of information in your long‐term memory. The audience is constantly trying to make sense of and associate 
    with actors on stage. Understanding, recalling, memorizing and deciding are made possible by the audience making associations to the 
    actors on stage. 

    The stage director is responsible for inhibiting unwanted actors from coming onto the stage and ruining a performance. These unwanted 
    actors are external distractions, like nearby conversations, and internal distractions, like afternoon food cravings. 

    3 Things You Must Know About Your Theater 

    Your Stage is Tiny  Your Stage Has One Spotlight  Your Director is Less Effective Later in 


    the Day 
    Recent research shows that the short‐ Your stage is illuminated by a single spotlight, 
    term working memory of the human  and that spotlight can only focus on one actor at  Over the course of a workday, hundreds 
    brain (your mental stage) can only  a time. If two or more actors are trying to get  of unwanted actors are trying to get on 
    fit four actors (four units of  your attention, the light needs to rapidly  stage and steal attention away from 
    information). Focusing on more than  switch between those actors. Imagine watching  important actors on stage. 
    four units of information at a time is  a performance where two actors are talking at 
    impossible, unless you can find a way  that same time, and a spotlight is rapidly  Each time your director has to step in 
    to simply and chunk the information  switching between those actors… That would be  and hold back an unwanted actor, 
    (ex: create mental models or acronyms  a terrible performance to watch!  he/she loses a bit of energy.  
    for multiple units of information). 
    Author David Rock describes a study from the  Eventually, your stage director becomes 
    Although you can fit up to four actors  University of California at San Diego that  too weak to stop unwanted actors from 
    on your stage at one time, "a study  "showed when people do two cognitive tasks at  walking on stage and ruining the 
    by Brian McElree at New York  once, their cognitive capacity can drop from  performance.
    University found that the number of  that of a Harvard MBA to that of an eight‐year‐
    chunks of information you can  old. It’s a phenomenon called dual‐task 
    remember accurately with no memory  interference." 
    degradation is, remarkably, only one." 

    3 Ways to Deal with the Limitations of Your Mental Stage 

    When deciding among multiple  Instead of rapidly switching your spotlight  When your stage director is having a 


    options, limit the number of actors  between two or more sources of information  hard time keeping unwanted actors off 
    on stage by isolating two options at a  (text messages, email messages, work project,  the stage, start pushing cognitively 
    time.   etc.), process the information in a serial  demanding tasks on your to‐do list to 
    manner. Take a few moments to schedule  the next morning (if possible). 
    If you 're deciding between five or  tasks so you can give each task your undivided 
    more colors for a design,  attention.   If you need to plan a big project, 
    arrange head‐to‐head battles starting  understand a complex subject, or make 
    with the first two colors. Isolate color  If you want to complete three tasks in the next  a major decision, do it in the first half 
    one and color two on the list and ask  hour, set up a sequence of three 20‐minute  of the day when your stage director 
    yourself, “Which of these two colors  time blocks and assign each task to a separate  can do a better job of keeping actors 
    improves the design?”  Whichever  time block.  off stage. 
    color wins goes on to face the third 
    color on the list.  

    www.ProductivityGame.com

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