Our team’s book club is currently reading up on the science of peak performance in Fabritius and Hagemann’s 2017 book. Check out our top learnings and some key experiments we plan to run below:
Stop multitasking—really.
The authors point to research that the brain cannot multitask. Each ping from your email distracts your brain for a few milliseconds—time that adds up in the long run. As a result, Sanger staff Michelle Austin and Silke Janz vowed to close email windows and other distractions when focusing on a complex task.
Start small.
Kaizen is the Japanese principle of continuous improvement. The authors note that by starting small and continuously building in manageable increments, one can accomplish great tasks. For example, running a marathon could seem insurmountable; running a lap is feasible. Here at Sanger, Brian Flanagan has a goal to write more, including contributing op-eds, articles, and book chapters to popular and scholarly publications. The hectic nature of his role at Sanger can make this feel like an unattainable goal. However, he plans to start small and use kaizen to make it happen.
The team will wrap up the second half of the book this month.
The Leading Brain: Powerful Science-Based Strategies for Achieving Peak Performance
by Friederike Fabritius and Hans W. Hagemann